Renowned Afropop artist Divine Ikubor, also known as Rema, emphasized that regardless of their attempts to rebrand music genres, his colleagues will continue to attend the Afrobeats Awards when required. Rema made this declaration while accepting his Best Male Artiste of the Year award at the 2023 Headies Awards in Atlanta, USA, on Sunday.
Rema said: “I must say it is very important that I should let everyone know that I’m not here because of the awards. I’m here because it is important to support our institutions. And when I said institutions, I mean the bodies that support you to be able to achieve these major successes; the media houses, award organisers, you know.
“We are in a very sensitive period if we don’t give our attention to our institutions, we will miss this chance that we have. And we will never have this chance again.
“Be it afrorave, afro this, afro that, last last, we go jam for afrobeats award. So, this is our chance. We afrobeats artists are not the first to do it. Reggae has done it before.”
His comment is against the backdrop of Burna Boy and some of his colleagues denouncing the afrobeats tag on the grounds that they don’t want to be “boxed” and afrobeats “lack substance.”
