Isaac “Soup” Campbell for Rolling Stone
Upstairs in the bathroom insulated from the blaring pulse of Afrobeats and dancehall, women in black miniskirts and tight dresses were drying their arms and legs. We’d withstood a torrential downpour to get into New York City’s Musica nightclub for Rema’s Heis listening party, celebrating the second album of the same name he released last month to critical acclaim. He had first christened the album with romp in London, wild clips from which blasted around the internet. Now, he was bringing the noise stateside.
Though Rema had long called his style of Afrobeats “Afro-rave,” there was little particularly rave-ready about it until Heis, a jarringly intense evolution of the Nigerian party music that defined the early 2010s in the diaspora. The event demanded an all-black dress code, matching both the album’s dark energy and, incidentally, the stormy night. All the girls standing in the line for the bathroom looked pristine, even with rain-waved hair and damp skin.
Musica’s main floor is flooded with bodies well before Rema’s arrival, with local-but-global DJs Mohogany, Brandon Blue and mOma readying the crowd. Alongside professional dancers hyping the crowd on stage, mOma, who co-hosts the popular traveling day party Everyday People around the world, runs a set that includes an edit of soca house classic “Work” (“What ya waiting for? Put ya back in it! Just a little more!” goes its popular refrain sung by Denise Belfon) and last year’s amapiano hit “Mnike” by Tyler ICU. It also includes “Bicycle,” by recently unincarcerated dancehall star Vybz Kartel, and, as has become customary at large gatherings, Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us.” You can hear the fists and palms collide from every corner when Kendrick cries “WOP WOP WOP WOP WOP, Dot, fuck ‘em up!”
Almost unceremoniously, Rema emerges from doors tucked far behind and catty-cornered from the stage, moving in a mob of friends, affiliates, and security to a section on the other end of the platform, through the mass of VIPs already hanging out behind the DJ booth. Though it was a muggy 70 degrees outside and much hotter in the packed venue, Rema wears a knit black beanie and heavy leather coat with diamond chains glistening from underneath. With his eyes guarded behind chunky black shades, he’s smoking what looks like a cigarette, a new calling card for his Heis era. Professional and iPhone photographers vie for footage of Rema as he ascends on top of a couch against a wall, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Nigerian singer Joeboy, his popular producer London (Rema and Selena Gomez’s “Calm Down,” Ayra Starr’s “Bloody Samaritan,” Tiwa Savage’s “Koroba”), Ghanaian singer King Promise, and eventually, New York City’s own Ferg. Shaboozey and Emily Ratajkowski are somewhere among the melee.
Rema only takes the stage after enjoying more of his cigarette, giving his crew time to hydrate with water and cocktails, and letting the exclusive batch of VIP onlookers bask in their presence. As his posse makes their way in infront of the DJ, a woman next to me bolts away from a man who embarrassingly clamored to get near her so she can get a better view of Rema. Operatic music crescendos as he and his friends take their place in front of the crowd under green strobes, still smoking. Then, there’s the sound of glass shattering. “When I say another what? You say another?” he says, testing the crowd with his signature tagline. “Another?”
“Banger!” we scream giddily.
“I don’t wanna take too much of your time, I wanna say thank you for coming out tonight,” he says with a sheepish, bright white grin. “I know it’s raining – you made it, you made it.” There’s more screaming before he makes a plea. “I want nothing but your energy,” he says, repeating the request four times, rapid fire. And true to his word, “March Am,” the frenzied first track on Heis, drops without much ado. Rema sways and bounces like he’s powering up, cupping his ear to beckon us to sing along.
The DJ runs through the album with few breaks – the strobes turn fire red for the electric percussion that kicks off “Azaman.” They go bright white then cobalt blue for “HEHEHE,” to which Rema jumps with so much vim he could’ve launched himself into the ceiling. He circles his hands to outline an imaginarily giant ass when the line “Ikebe super, oya, shake am,” plays from “Villian.” He struts with his elbows up and out to “Benin Boys,” and raps Shallipoppi’s verse with even more fervor than his own lyrics. He keeps a mic in hand and impressively manages to perform more loudly than his voice on the tracks when he decides to. London, also in a leather jacket, two-steps with a dainty, pink, handheld electric fan cooling his face.
There are brief moments where the spotlight shines on his special guests, like when Ferg performs his important entry to the modern New York rap pantheon, “Plain Jane.” “Where my Africans at?” says Ferg, who was born and raised in Harlem by Trini parents. “Let’s get into some classic shit.” It’s a welcome addition, but doesn’t turn the crowd up as much as Wande Coal’s Afrobeats staple “Iskaba,” which he belts parts of with skilled trills. Shaboozey, who is Nigerian-American, makes his way to the front of the stage, too, not to perform (this is not quite the place for “A Bar Song,” and he looks like he didn’t get the blackout memo in his army green jacket and white tank), but to lock his arm around Rema’s neck and celebrate the title track with him.
The Heis song that’s really shaking the scene, though, is “Ozeba,” which fittingly takes its name from a Nollywood horror that used to scare Rema when he was younger. He puffs his cigarette as it cues up, while London takes a bottle of Don Julio 1942 straight to the head. I see a couple in their own world, pogoing together with big smiles, nose to nose. There’s pockets of jumping and light moshing throughout the crowd, though many have prioritized capturing Rema on their phones. Though Rema asked for energy, and there is surely some, the real party is on the stage. He sets off a count of four before the incessant hook drops and the audience’s voices surge: “OZEBA, OZEBA, OZEBA, OZEBA!” He and his friends jump in unison from right to left, a wave of joy, levity, and accomplishment. They run it back two more timeless before Rema eventually disappears into the abyss of bodies behind the DJ booth. Before he leaves, though, he has one more ask. “Tell everyone you know about Rema’s music,” he says. “I need you as much as you need me.”
From Rolling Stone US.
