On the O2 Area in London final November, Nigerian Afrobeats star Rema got here onstage using a glowing red-and-black horse and sporting a masks impressed by Queen Idia, a cultural icon courting to the Sixteenth-century Kingdom of Benin. The musician hoped it might be a devastating assertion on the UK’s continued hoarding of African artwork, together with well-known sculptures of Idia. Elsewhere within the present, he carried out atop an enormous bat, referencing a well-known sight within the skies over Benin Metropolis. However the theatrical tribute to Rema’s hometown and his individuals’s historical past was met with reactions starting from confusion to conspiracy theories questioning whether or not he was a part of the Illuminati.
The colossal worldwide success of Rema’s 2022 single “Calm Down” accelerated the rise of a feather-ruffling new voice in Afrobeats, one keenly conscious of his potential to ascend to the extent of the style’s large three—Burna Boy, Davido, and Wizkid. That fateful present in London spurred the creation of Rema’s second album, HEIS, a document that kicks again with spring-loaded rhythms and gleeful provocations and brings the defining parts of his metropolis entrance and middle.
Up till now, Rema was typically noticed with a cuddly human-size teddy bear. On HEIS, the 24-year-old artist adopts a roguish anti-hero character, represented by a bat, who flexes with the grandiosity of a U.S. rapper: Rema as each Bruce Wayne and Batman. Alexander Wang, icy wrists, and Richard Mille all wrap across the beat of the wordy but contagious “Yayo”; on the refrain of “Hehehe,” he unleashes a cartoonishly sardonic chortle. He’s in Venice sipping Henny on the Miami bass-inspired “Azaman,” which appears like he’s winking at you from what may very well be the highest deck of a yacht.
Rema hadn’t touched base in Benin Metropolis since 2018, having moved to Lagos earlier than launching his profession with breakout first single “Dumebi.” HEIS reconnects along with his dwelling metropolis’s vitality: Percussion strikes in unbreakable clusters, dusty guitars are swapped for laser-gun synth, and strings define the album in an ornate gold body. “Black Bentayga, smoking a reefer,” Rema begins the title observe, with Arabic strings rising round him as if Amaarae’s Fountain Child is filling the Bentley’s audio system.
At simply 28 minutes, HEIS strikes with ceaseless hustle. The place Rave & Roses opened with a cauldron of sentimental chords and guitar, HEIS begins with 4 blunt bars of 16-bit synth stabs earlier than springing into uninterrupted motion. “Observe me run, you tear your ACL,” he raps on “Azaman.” Removed from the chiseled stylings of Asake and Wizkid, Rema opts for an antsy stream of consciousness with the momentum of a Ferrari. Simply because the tempo threatens to gradual, “Ozeba” levels a blind date between snapping kuduro and the form of deep-voiced vocal inflection Playboi Carti has toyed with lately. The chemistry is quick.
The ultimate moments of HEIS tease a full-on heel flip. The penultimate “Villain” samples the featherweight piano of Lana Del Rey’s “A&W”—itself a music that cycles by way of characters and states of ethical alignment—and turns it right into a sinful amapiano body-winder. “Please don’t be mad at the truth that your child na my child don’t take it personally,” Rema sings by way of a Cheshire cat grin. “Now I Know” snaps out of this fantasy to the touch on uncooked wounds. “All of my childhood I misplaced ’trigger I wan feed household,” he cries, pondering of the battle of caring for his family members after the loss of life of his older brother at 15. It’s a second of revelation from an album of blood-pumping insanity. In going again dwelling, Rema recasts an act of defiance as an exciting character arc and a snapshot of his dwelling metropolis. It’s as exhilarating as a avenue race, as gothic because the bats flying above him.
