During the pandemic, Nigerian artist Rema came to the U.S. to play his debut album, “Rave & Roses,” for Virgin Music Group. The Afrobeats star was joined by folks from Mavin Records and Jonzing World, where he’s signed, to unveil a project that included what would become his first massive hit to date, “Calm Down.”
“That was a one-listen record for everyone,” says Jacqueline Saturn, president of Virgin Music, which distributes Rema’s music. “Everyone stopped in their tracks when they heard it. From the beginning, the question was ‘How are we going to do this globally and change the game?’”
Brick by brick, of course. The marketing strategy for “Calm Down” began overseas following its release in February 2022, picking up steam in France before conquering markets including the Netherlands, Belgium and the United Kingdom. As the conversational, carefree track started to percolate in the United States and gain traction on rhythmic radio, Mavin began to feel the song’s potential to scale even greater heights, with international interest from DJs asking to put their own spin on it. Mavin began considering a remix for “Calm Down,” and the idea of Selena Gomez as an added feature came up.
“From an outright strategy perspective, nobody would be expecting that,” says Peter “Tega” Oghenejobo, COO of Mavin, who worked alongside Rema’s A&R at Mavin, Rima Tahini Ighodaro, to develop the record. “Especially because she hasn’t put out so much music recently, so I liked the idea of unpredictability.”
Convincing Gomez didn’t take much, since she was already a fan of Rema’s music. At that point, Virgin was a division under Capitol Records (it became a standalone entity in Sept. 2022), and Capitol’s A&R department connected the dots from Mavin to Gomez’s management team at Lighthouse. Once Gomez signed off, her label, Interscope, came into the fold, with senior director of A&R Vanessa Angiuli tapping writer Kiddo A.I. to pen her verse. “For so many years, we’ve been trying to curate Selena’s discography in a way that is authentic to who she is,” says Angiuli. “It felt right. And everybody on the team was all in agreement.”
The remix to “Calm Down” arrived in August 2022, and it wasn’t an instant hit. In fact, it took until this past April to crack the Top 10 of the Billboard Radio Songs chart. But with the promotional and marketing power of the entities driving it, the remix had a similar strategy to the original, only with more manpower. As the track became a viral sensation on TikTok (where it’s been used in 1.8 million videos) and was instantly beloved by programmers at DSPs, radio embraced the song, thanks in part to the crossover efforts from Interscope Geffen A&M executive VP of promotion Chris Lopes.
After all this time, those involved with the hit refer to “Calm Down” and its remix as “the song of two summers” — a rarity in the music business. “I haven’t seen anything that continues to grow, continues to be an anthem, continues to be used in these moments that are meaningful,” says Saturn. “And I don’t expect it to stop anytime soon.”
SONGWRITERS: Selena Gomez, Michael Hunter (London), Amanda Renee Ibanez (Kiddo A.I.), Divine Ikubor (Rema), Alexander Osamudiame Uwaifo (Wyfi)
PRODUCERS: Andre Vibez & London
LABELS: Mavin/Jonzing/SMG/Virgin/ Interscope
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