walking upstream…
Rema
Divine Ikubor was rapping in church by eleven, leading a teen gospel-rap crew in Benin City, Nigeria; his parents' record collection — heavy on Fela Kuti and 2Face — planted what he later called the start of his love for music. A viral freestyle over D'Prince's 'Gucci Gang' got him flown to Lagos and signed to Jonzing World, the Mavin Records offshoot, in 2018. 'At the time I only had trap songs,' he told Pitchfork, 'so when [D'Prince] put me in the studio with an Afrobeats producer I was scared. But I just mixed my trap vibes in and didn't force it.' That fusion — trap cadences riding Afrobeats percussion, later branded 'Afrorave' — carried 'Dumebi' (2019) and then 'Calm Down' (2022) to a global audience, making him one of Afrobeats' self-declared 'Big Four.'
the sound in question
2022
Calm DownRema
walk the tributaries ↓
Sade1980s · Smooth jazz / Soul / Sophisti-pop
For 2025's 'Baby (Is It a Crime),' Rema didn't just borrow Sade's title — the track opens with her actual 1985 vocal breaking through a staticky crackle before the drums come in. 'I'm a huge fan of Sade. I like the peace her vocals give me,' he told Complex on the Grammys red carpet. 'I was just in the studio, and I talked to my boy like, "Let's see how we sample some of her stuff." Played around with a couple of stuff until we found this one.'
listen: upstream & heresource: Billboard — Rap, R&B, Afrobeats Songs Sampling Sade (Sade sample confirmation + studio quote) ↗
1985
Is It a CrimeSade
2025
Baby (Is It a Crime)Rema
listen forSade's 1985 'Is It a Crime' opens on her hushed, unhurried come-on: 'Is it a crime, that I still want you.' Rema's 'Baby (Is It a Crime)' lifts that exact vocal into its intro, then answers it in his own register — a rippling Pidgin trill riding a slicker, faster Afrobeats pulse. The hinge is the title hook itself, passed whole from one voice to the other before either song fully starts.
Fela Kuti1970s · Afrobeat / Funk / Highlife
Rema's parents played him one record above all others as a kid in Benin City: 'I credit my parents for introducing me to Fela Kuti and 2Face,' he has said, 'that is where my love for music was born.' Fela invented the term Afrobeat; Rema now works under his own coinage 'Afrorave,' nested inside the wider Afrobeats umbrella that borrows Fela's name. Asked what it means to follow him, Rema didn't dodge the weight of it: 'Everybody wants to be their own Fela at some point in their career.'
listen: upstream & heresource: Official Charts — Interview ↗
1976
ZombieFela Kuti
2020
Peace Of MindRema
listen forFela's ten-minute 'Zombie' (1976) mocked Nigeria's soldiers as mindless automatons over a rolling Afrobeat horn line; Rema's much shorter 'Peace of Mind' works the same Pidgin protest tradition — 'Gunshot no let me meditate... Police sef they go deny the case' — over a trap-leaning beat instead of horns. The debt here is in the stance, not the arrangement: both refuse to soften the accusation against power, even where the music around the words has almost nothing else in common.
2Baba2000s · Afrobeats / Afropop / Reggae
The same conversation that introduced Rema to Fela Kuti introduced him to 2Face (now 2Baba) — the two names he credits, together, as the reason he fell in love with music at all. 2Face's 2004 breakout 'African Queen' had already proven a Nigerian love song could travel past its home audience without losing its identity; Rema's own 2019 breakout, an unhurried, melodic Pidgin hook built the same way, carried that same trick to an audience 2Face's generation could only point toward.
listen: upstream & here
2004
African Queen2Baba
2019
DumebiRema
listen forPlay 2Face's 'African Queen' (2004) against Rema's 'Dumebi' (2019): both are guitar-and-keys-led, mid-tempo praise songs that lean on melodic, Pidgin-inflected phrasing rather than rapped verses to carry the hook. Where 2Face sings the compliment straight, Rema half-sings, half-mumbles his through the deliberately blurred syllables that made 'Dumebi' catchy before most listeners could make out a single word.