'Kelebu' is evidence of Rema's desire to be different at any cost

When Rema released his sophomore album 'HEIS', it conveyed his desire to be a distinctly creative artist.

The album is driven by Mara beat, a strain of Nigerian street music defined by uptempo drums and accompanied by a creative legwork dance.  

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The songs were breathless, uptempo, mosh pit-driven, and chest-thumping. It was a project that backed his bold demand that the Afrobeats Big 3 of Davido, Wizkid, and Burna Boy be expanded to a Big 4 in recognition of his exploits.

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With 'HEIS,' Rema created a project whose sonic configurations were grandiose in their elements.

It dominated the party scene and turned his concerts into a mosh pit. It earned a Grammy nomination and underscored his status as a daring artist. The album was a success.

In 2025, after lending himself to a global audience with the R&B-shaped singles 'Is It A Crime' and 'Bout U', Rema returned to the African pop scene to create 'Kelebu', a song he intended to soundtrack the summer.

For 'Kelebu', Rema tapped into the breathless delivery that shaped HEIS. He plugged the rage and defiance that delivered 'Ozeba' and 'Azaman' into the francophone pop sound Coupe Decale.

But the self-styled Rave Lorde isn't one to tow the conventional path. In his pan Africanist sonic exploration, everything feels grander.

The horns are emphatic, the keys are loud, and the trobbing uptempo drums kept up with his aggressive chest thumping.

However, the song is yet to make the impact of a summer jam Rema intended it to be; neither has it received the acceptance to match the composition's grandiosity.

The dance challenge, backed by a $10,000 prize, offered the song an immediate push on social media, but this early momentum has since wound down, with the song failing to find favour in the sights of listeners.

Three weeks after its release, 'Kelebu' is looking like a miss for Rema, who appears to have left the listeners behind in his Rave kingdom.

For 'Kelebu,' the first answer is probably its sonics. It's simply not an easily enjoyable song.

Coupe Decale isn't a strange sound to the Nigerian and African pop scene. Congolese legend Awilo Longomba's classic album 'Coupé Bibamba' is one of the most ubiquitous records across West Africa.

However, Rema's exploration takes it to a whole new level that makes for a loud record that's jarring and provocative in its grandeur.

The beat demands that you dance, ignore the song's jarring structure, and simply move your body along to the energy it breathes. However, this mostly works in the club and rave circuits where energy is high, and scrutiny and appeal are temporarily dismissed.

'Kelebu' aims to be bold and different, but ended up being a little too different for the average consumer, who has so far been reluctant to engage.

The song debuted at NO. 5 on TurnTable Top 100 before dropping to NO 8 a week later.

As of August 25, the song is NO. 50 on the Spotify Top 100 daily chart, while altogether departing the top 100 of the Apple Music Top 100. This is a reflection of its low-consumption streaming platform

Daring comes with a prize. Sometimes, it works. Other times it doesn't. For 'Kelebu', it just didn't come off.

With Rema, the ordinary is boring. He made this clear in the early days of his career through his exploration of trap music.

His branding, imagery, visuals, and artistic approach have consistently pushed creative boundaries. And with global stardom, he injected an energy into Afrobeats that demands listeners to discard their expectations and embrace adventure.

Rema is a complex artist. The author's note for his sophomore album, 'HEIS', showed influences of Chinese astrology, Japanese anime, and his Edo heritage. He considers himself "the chosen one", destined to walk similar paths as Jesus Christ and the fictional Neo from the movie The Matrix.

For Rema, being the chosen one demands that he's decidedly different. Even if the interpretations are complex and demand too much from listeners.

Sometimes, the songs can also be different just for the sake of it, as in the case of the jarring 'Kelebu', but at every point, the distinction must be unequivocal.