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After building anticipation online all week, Afrobeats star Rema has released “Kelebu,” a raucous, horn-driven new single. “Ok ..I want y’all to DANCE this summer!” he posted on X on July 26 as he teased the song online. Nigerian culture publication the Native pointed out that “Kelebu” blends influences from, Bouyon, a high-octane dance music from Dominica, as well as Makossa from Cameroon and Coupé-décalé from Côte d’Ivoire, all French-speaking countries across the Caribbean and Africa.
When Rolling Stone asked a representative of Rema what “Kelebu” means, Rema provided the following statement: “Growing up, I didn’t have a phone to create my music taste, my household had different music tastes, I listened to what everybody played. In school parties, we used to dance to a lot of Caribbean and Francophone bounces. We didn’t care about what they were saying because most of them were not even in our local language in Nigeria. They just kept repeating one word with a fantastic instrumental backing it up, and we all danced. Making music now, I’m reliving those moments by expressing it with my art.”
On July 27, Rema offered a major incentive to get people moving. “$10K for whoever come up with a EASY dance for KELEBU. out this Friday!” he posted on X. Since then, there have been around 14,500 posts using a clip of the sound on TikTok. In one video, a creator wrote, “Me explaining to my friends the thing we could buy with $10k if they can stop being shy and dance with me on the internet,” while conducting to the song’s dramatic opening synths with what looks like a make-up brush. When the beat dropped, she list things like “Buy Nigeria” and “Buy our enemies.”
“Kelebu” marks Rema’s third single of the year, following April’s “Bout U” and February’s “Baby (Is It a Crime)”, which earned nearly three million streams on its first day, and has since tallied over 62 million streams on Spotify and 20 million streams on its official music video. “I didn’t really spend much time on the comments or reception, trying to feed my ego or something,” Rema told Rolling Stone the day he was interviewed for his April cover story. “I’m that guy who’ll post something and just go to bed.”
From Rolling Stone US.
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