New Artistes Like Omah Lay And CKay Are Copying Rema’s Style — True Or Not?

 

Rema is one of the most promising young guys in the Nigerian music industry, and he has been for about two years now.

Since his self-titled debut EP shot him to stardom in 2019, he has established a name for himself by making countless hits, dropping another critically acclaimed EP, and winning the Next Rated award at The Headies in 2019.

After beating Fireboy, Joeboy, Lyta, Victor AD and Zlatan to win that Next Rated award, it was clear that Rema did not come to play. Don Jazzy pushed him, and yes, that’s very important in an industry like that. But it’s not enough. After all, Rema is not the only artist Don Jazzy is managing. But what is so special about Rema then?

STYLE

Afrobeats has changed, over the years and we are no longer in the heydays of Wizkid, Davido and Olamide. There’s a new wave already. The new style is characterized by the usage of meaningless chants and funny lyrics on usually calm afro beats.

Rema who has hit songs like “Iron Man,” “Lady,” “Ginger Me” and “Woman” happened to be one of the first to experiment that style and make hits consistently doing that new vibe. After Rema‘s unprecedented success, many other new artists followed suit.

This has made many artists in a bid to score a hit track turn to making songs where they sound like the young Mavin singer. For example, last year, Blaqbonez made his biggest hit yet, “Haba” and on it, he tried out the style. Since then, he’s done “BBC” and “Bling” and they all sound like what Rema would do.

There’s also CKay, whose smash hit “Felony” is a direct copy of Rema and Universal Music artist Alpha P, with “Paloma.” In fact, Fireboy even tried to do something similar on his “Spell,” a song from his last album.

Then there is Omah Lay, who although doesn’t exactly sound like Rema, still uses the same style to make his songs. He, incidentally, won the Next Rated award, earlier this year.

So, what do you think? Is it all a coincidence? (I don’t think it is.)

Or are these new artists now copying Rema so they can make hits?