Rema Announces Sophomore Album ‘HEIS’
Rema announced on Monday (July 8) that he’ll release his sophomore album, HEIS, on Friday, July 11.
He shared an animation of himself wearing a gold, emerald-embellished bat chain, with bats flying around him in his fiery environment. “second Album ‘HEIS’ 7/11,” he captioned the clip with the bat and blood-drop emojis.
The Afrorave superstar (real name Divine Ikubor) dropped the Shallipopi-assisted “Benin Boys” single last month, which debuted at No. 13 on Billboard‘s U.S. Afrobeats Songs chart last week (dated July 6). He also released the single “HEHEHE” on Sunday, July 7. Rema released his debut album, Rave & Roses, in March 2022, which included his breakthrough smash “Calm Down” that later received a remix with Selena Gomez.
“Calm Down” reached No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 and topped U.S. Afrobeats Songs (for a record-setting 58 weeks), Adult Pop Airplay (two weeks), Pop Airplay (five weeks), Rhythmic Airplay (four weeks) and World Digital Song Sales (32 weeks). It won best Afrobeats song at the 2023 Billboard Music Awards, best collaboration at the 2024 iHeartRadio Music Awards and best Afrobeats at the 2023 MTV Video Music Awards, among many other accolades.
Since Rave & Roses, Rema has released a Ravage EP and collaborated with many artists such as Ice Spice, performing their “Pretty Girl” track together for the first time on Saturday Night Live in October, and Feid, earning Rema his first chart appearance and No. 1 on Latin Airplay at the beginning of the year.
See Rema’s HEIS album announcement below.
Heran Mamo
Billboard