Rema and Selena Gomez’s ‘Calm Down’ Remix Video Hits 1 Billion Views on YouTube

Rema and Selena Gomez‘s remix video for the Afrobeats star’s 2022 single, “Calm Down” has crossed the one billion views mark on YouTube. The visual for the song that originally appeared on Nigerian singer Rema’s Feb. 2022 debut studio album, Rave & Roses, got a second life in August of that year when Gomez hopped into the visual for the sultry jam.

In the video, both singers hang out in a living room with green walls and colorful tapestries, with Gomez dancing seductively behind a beaded curtain and shaking her hips alongside Rema as he sings, “I see this fine girl, for my party, she wear yellow/ Every other girl they dey do too much, but this girl mellow/ Naim, I dey find situation, I go use take tell am ‘Hello’/ Finally, I find way to talk to the girl, but she no wan’ follow.”

Midway through, Gomez sidles up to Rema and adds, “Yeah, I know I look shy but for you i get down, woah/ And my hips make you cry when I’m moving around you/ Do it once, do it twice/ I push back you hold me tight.” The two then join forces on the chorus: “Baby, show me you can calm down, calm down/ Dance with me and take the lead now, lead now/ Got you so high that you can’t come down, come down” as the action turns to an all-white garage where the pair pose on a vintage roadster.

In addition to crossing the billion mark on YT, the song set all kinds or records during its chart run, including the longest run at the top of Billboard’s U.S. Afrobeats Songs chart and first song in history to spend a year on that chart (currently at 138 weeks) and the record for the first African song to log a whole year (57 weeks total) on the Billboard Hot 100. The song also has the record for the most weeks ever spent on Billboard’s Pop Airplay chart, logging an unprecedented 64 weeks as of Jan. 20 of this year; “Calm Down” bested the previous record-holder, Harry Styles’ “As It Was,” which had 63 week at the top in 2022-2023.

Watch the “Calm Down” remix video below.

Gil Kaufman

Billboard