Culture

Rema & Selena Gomez’s “Calm Down” Wins Best Afrobeats Award At The VMAs

“Africa in the house tonight!”

  • written by Eavesdroppr's
  • 3 min read
  • 13 Sep, 2023
Billboard

Rema and Selena Gomez casually made history by creating one of the best songs in 2023. “Calm down” shows no signs of calming down, from topping charts nonstop to winning the Best Afrobeats Award at the MTV Video Music Award. Could we be any prouder?

Their hit song was announced as the Best Afrobeat song, and this just goes to show the strides Afrobeats is making, and continues to make worldwide. The duo have monumentally made history by winning a 2023 MTV Video, both Rema and Selena expressed their joy and appreciation to everyone who helped in making it happen. 

Don’t get us started on Rema’s speech, it was inspirational and left us all in our feelings, Rema and Selena went up on the stage to receive their award to the sound of excited fans, Rema speech started off with the best one liner, he said “Africa in the house tonight…” and we all felt it.

“First of all i want to give big thanks to God, i want to give big thanks to my fans…This means so much seeing Afrobeats grow this big, and being here on this stage representing Afrobeats tonight, i’m so happy.” The star also thanked his team, and the iconic Selena Gomez.

Rema’s speech didn’t end there, he proceeded to say, “One thing I won't forget to do tonight, is forget the people who opened the doors for me, big shoutout to Fela who started Afrobeats in the first place. 2 Baba, Don Jazzy, Dbanj, De Prince, Runtown, Timaya, 2 Face, Wizkid, Burna Boy, Davido…And I want to give a big shout out to the new generation of Afrobeats, we are here to take it to the rest of the world, and one more time make some noise for Selena Gomez.”

Selena Gomez and Rema at MTV VMA || Cosmopolitan
Selena Gomez started off her speech by thanking Rema, she said, “Thank you Rema for believing in me, and thank you for choosing me to be part of such an incredible song that’s been able to break records…thank you to all of you for listening, for streaming, i could not be more honored, and i want to send all my love to Nigeria…”

This moment will surely go down in history, “Calm Down” is a great song that has broken a number of records since its release. We would be remiss not to mention how Taylor Swift cheered in the crowd for her friend Selena, it is one of the cutest BFF moments you’ll ever witness.

Rema and Selena’s Calm Down didn’t just win the Best Afrobeats Award, in our book, it also won the Best Dynamic Duo in a song together. We definitely didn’t see this collaboration between Rema and Selena coming, but we’re so glad it happened.



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