For the second year in a row, Divine Ikubor, also known as Rema, again registered his imprint as the biggest news in pop culture. His musical feats, laurels, and exploits, for 2025 cemented his potential as the poster boy of Afrobeats. Born into the home of slain chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Edo State and former General Manager of Ethiope Publishing Company, Mr. Justice Ikubor, on May 1, 2000, Rema had an impactful second year in a row in 2025 and stands tall as Entertainer of the Year with historical feats.
Now 25-year-old, the pop star’s sophomore album, “HEIS,” has continued to garner not only attention but global accolades. According to Angelique Kidjo, Rema is the embodiment of the international success of Afrobeats and thanks to artists like him, African music is at the forefront of global culture.
His 2023 monster hit, ‘Calm Down,’ off his 2022 album ‘Raves & Roses’ has continued to amass millions of views in 2025. In fact, the song has joined the billion streams club twice over.
Rema began his year by copping two major awards, Album of the Year for his hit album ‘HEIS’ and Best Male Artist at the 2025 Trace Awards in February 2025.
In April 2025 at the 17th Headies awards, Rema won two awards, Afrobeats Album of the Year for his album ‘HEIS’ and Producer of the Year for his song ‘Ozeba.’
In the third quarter of the year, Rema’s hit single in 2025, ‘Baby,’ claimed the number one spot as the most exported Nigerian song of 2025. The list showcases the incredible range and global appeal of Nigerian music as well as Rema’s dominance on international audiences.
By September 2025, he had emerged one of the world’s most influential rising stars as he was featured in the 2025 TIME100 Next list.
The list which celebrates the world’s most influential rising stars across music, film, sports, politics, science, and philanthropy also featured football prodigy Lamine Yamal.
The feat by Rema as the only Nigerian artiste featured on the list was further reinforced with his increased streaming numbers. His music accumulates an average of about 3.7 million streams per day on Spotify. In 2025 alone, the young Nigerian music star surpassed 800 million streams on Spotify, a leading music streaming platform.
Research showed that as of 2025, Rema has surpassed 12 billion total career streams globally and 5.5 billion total Spotify streams as of late 2025. His Spotify numbers include over 5.45 billion total streams for all his tracks. He possesses 4.24 billion streams as the lead artist across 71 tracks, and approximately 1.21 billion streams from 55 tracks, which he featured on.
In 2025, Rema decided to spoil himself and lavish funds on the acquisition of luxury automobiles valued at N1 billion, in total. The music star made headlines after acquiring two luxury vehicles – a Mercedes Benz G63, valued at N600 million, and a Lamborghini Urus, estimated at N400 million.
Rema first rose to fame with his 2019 hit single Dumebi, released under D’Prince’s Jonzing World label.
He is signed to Jonzing World, a subsidiary of Mavin Records owned by music executive Don Jazzy. His self-titled debut EP, ‘Rema,’ was released in 2019 and topped Apple Music’s Nigerian charts. The music video for “Dumebi” has over 81 million views on YouTube.