Nigerian afrobeats star Rema has hit a milestone with his runaway hit song, Calm Down becoming the first ever hit number one on the official MENA (Middle East and North Africa) music chart.

Guinness World Record, the most trusted global source of human and natural world records recognized the 23-year-old music sensation. They wrote: “Rema puts forward a fresh, globalized, brave take on afrobeats that seems to work for the international market.”

On music streaming platform, Spotify, he is closing in on 400 million streams for the original version of the song while the remix with American pop star, Selena Gomez has over 700 million streams on the platform.

This year, the remix scored a nomination for Best Trended Song at Global Awards. It also topped the Billboard Global Exclusive U.S. chart at No. 1 on his first appearance. He peaked at No. 5 at the Billboard Hot 100.

The MENA is a weekly Top 20 that collects data from 13 MENA countries – United Arab Emirates, Tunisia, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Qatar, Oman, Algeria, Bahrain, Kuwait, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt. This represents a market of over 300 million people monitored by the chart, that also keeps tabs on streaming platforms Apple Music, Spotify, YouTube and Deezer.

Rema who also has a sizable legion of fans in Uganda last performed here at the Afropalooza Festival in October 2022 but left a section of his fans fuming because he didn’t share a single photo of his time in Uganda on his socials.