Nigerian Afrobeats artist Rema’s single “Calm Down” has debuted off the Billboard Hot 100 after a record-breaking 57 weeks.
The music monitoring platform Chart Data stated on X that “it made history, becoming the longest-charting and most successful African song of all time.”
The song broke the 35-week mark that fellow Nigerian Afrobeats artist Wizkid’s single Essence had held.
In September of last year, some seven months after its release, Calm Down made its way onto the Billboard Hot 100.
Since its publication, the enthralling song—which Billboard magazine’s music critic called “a melancholy slow jam with a subtle hypnotic draw”—has captured the attention of music lovers all over the world.
Despite having a minor role in the song, American pop sensation Selena Gomez contributed to Calm Down’s enormous international appeal.
The song was the highest-charting single featuring an Afrobeats singer as the lead artist, peaking at number three on the Billboard Hot 100, the most prestigious music ranking in the United States.
Once word leaked out that the song had fallen from the Billboard Hot 100 chart, fans of both remarked and Selena Gomez applauded the song’s historic accomplishment.
Over a dozen records have been broken by it. It was the first song by an African artist to reach one million streams on Spotify last month, and it also became the most streamed Afrobeats song on the platform.
We can’t calm down—Rema is the first African musician to lead a song that has received one billion Spotify plays! When Calm Down broke the record, Spotify wrote on X, “Congratulations to Rema and Selena Gomez.”
In addition, Calm Down is the first to appear on the Billboard Afrobeats chart for a whole year. With 673 million views on YouTube, it is also the most-viewed music video by a Nigerian artist.
Due to the song’s ongoing popularity abroad, Rema, 23, has joined the ranks of well-known Afrobeats musicians like Davido, Burna Boy, and Wizkid.
The song defeated other well-known afrobeats musicians to win the first-ever Best Afrobeats song at the MTV VMA Awards last month.
Source: 1Familyradio