Popular singer Divine Ikubor, better known as Rema, has frequently emphasized that in order for Nigerian musicians to preserve the tradition of afrobeats, the nation must remain dominant in the African music scene.
According to THE MATRIX, the South African music genre known as “amapiano” has been heavily incorporated into the Nigerian music scene in recent times.
Rema acknowledged in an interview with Apple Music that amapiano is a fantastic genre, but she insisted that Nigerian musicians are responsible for preserving afrobeats’ prominence on the continent.
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He noted that his recently-released sophomore album, ‘HeIs,’ was heavily inspired by afrobeats legends like 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.”