After a record 57 weeks, Nigerian Afrobeats star Rema’s song Calm Down has fallen off the Billboard Hot 100.
“It made history, becoming the longest-charting and most successful African song of all time,” the music monitoring platform Chart Data said on X.
The song smashed the 35-week record held by fellow Nigerian Afrobeats star Wizkid’s song Essence.
Calm Down entered the Billboard Hot 100 in September last year, about seven months after its release.
The captivating song, which Billboard magazine music analysts described as “a melancholy slow jam with a subtle hypnotic draw”, has gripped music enthusiasts worldwide since its release.
Calm Down’s massive global popularity is partly due to American pop star Selena Gomez featuring on the song, though her part was small.
The song peaked at position three on the Billboard Hot 100, the most prestigious music ranking in the US, making it the highest-charting song on which an Afrobeats musician was the lead artist.
Fans of both Rema and Selena have celebrated the song’s historic achievement following the news of its exit from the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
It has broken more than a dozen records. Last month it became the most streamed Afrobeats song on Spotify and the first African artist-led song to hit one billion streams on the music platform.
“We can’t Calm Down, Rema has entered the Billions Club with the first African artist-led track to hit a billion streams on Spotify! Congratulations to Rema and Selena Gomez,” Spotify posted on X when Calm Down set the record.
Calm Down is also the first song to spend one year on the Billboard Afrobeats chart and its YouTube video, with 673 million views, is the most-watched music video by a Nigerian artist.
The song’s enduring international success has thrust 23-year-old Rema into the ranks of prominent Afrobeats artists like Wizkid, Burna Boy and Davido.
Last month, the song won the inaugural Best Afrobeats song at the MTV VMA Awards, edging out other popular Afrobeats artists.
Source: BBC