Young Nigerian music star, Divine Ikubor, known professionally as Rema, has entered into the Guinness World Book of Records courtesy of his global hit song ‘Calm Down’.
The song made history as the first No.1 hit on the world’s first regional streaming chart and first-ever official chart in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).
Guinness World Record, in a statement through its official website acknowledged Rema’s historic feat.
Rema’s ‘Calm Down’ debuted at No. 1 when the MENA Chart was launched by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) on November 29, 2022.
The statement read in part: “On 29 November 2022, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) announced that “Calm Down” by the Nigerian rapper Rema (b. Divine Ikubor) had become the first No.1 on The Official MENA Chart – the world’s first regional music streaming chart and the first-ever official chart in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).
The weekly Top 20 collects data from the major streaming platforms across 13 MENA countries, covering a population of more than 300 million people combined: Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and the United Arab Emirates.”
The song topped the chart for over two months.
He now joins Femi Kuti and Wizkid as Nigerian musicians with World Guinness records.
Calm Down which has a remix with Selena Gomez also recently smashed the record for most streams by an African performer on Spotify with over one billion streams.
