Popular musician Divine Ikubor, known as Rema, has emphasized the importance of Nigerian artists maintaining afrobeats culture in order for the country to maintain its dominance in the African music industry.
According to reports, the South African genre amapiano has seen a significant invasion into the Nigerian music industry in recent years.
In an interview with Apple Music, Rema acknowledged that amapiano is a great genre, but emphasized that Nigerian artists must maintain afrobeats’ presence on the continent.
He stated that his recently released sophomore album, ‘HeIs,’ was strongly influenced by afrobeat luminaries such as Don Jazzy and the Mo’hits crew, 2Baba, Olamide, P-Square, and Timaya.
“I had to go back [while creating my new album]. I took a lot of inspiration from Mo’hits. For the first four seconds, when a Mo’hits’ song comes in, you already know it’s a Mo’hits’ song. Don Jazzy just goes crazy on the beat,” he said.
“The times when Olamide used to drop crazy songs, he still drops crazy songs. At the time when an Olamide song comes on you still know. P-Square, 2Face or Timaya. There used to be times when the beat just…
“Amapiano is great, it is fire but there used to be a time when Afrobeats production used to be so insane that nothing can survive it in the clubs in Africa. I’m not saying we’ve lost that but I’m just saying that we need more of that. I don’t want us to go too far away from that. We need to sustain it.”
