Divine Ikubor popularly known by his stage name Rema has been a solid hit maker since he showed up on the Nigerian music scene. Dirty, off the blazing album Rave & Roses, is no different. The Album has to its acclaim several other household hits, some of which are Divine, Hold Me, Dirty, Soundgasm, Time N Affection, Jo, Addicted, Oroma Baby,  Are You There and quite a number of other hit tracks.

Of course, Rema cannot be mentioned without highlighting what is probably one of his greatest achievements in the music scene, his bubbling hit single, the chart topping Calm Down remix featuring international sensation Selena Gomez, which received a massive positive response from fans worldwide. A feat to indeed be applauded as Rema did not put just himself on the map, he put Nigerian music as a whole out there. Big ups to the artiste of the day for representing.

Rema began his voyage in music at a very tender age in churches. In 2018, the hit artiste posted a video that went viral, a freestyle of D’Prince’s track Gucci Gang. This freestyle caught the attention of D’Prince, who flew Rema to Lagos, Nigeria to offer him a record deal. These chain of events marked the beginning of the artiste’s rise to stardom.

Dirty is not your regular afrobeat song. It has a slow, ribald feel to it, one that gets listeners hooked before they even know it.

The sultry beat begins with what sounds like a steady calypso guitar, then the whistling sound of a jazz trumpet adds to the mix while Rema’s voice creeps up on listeners in all the pleasant ways, as the song leads up to the chorus, a synth piano is added to the mix, creating the yummiest of sounds, it is all an absolute a delight to the ear drums.

The song, which spans three minutes 42 seconds, comes in two verses, having the chorus and post chorus sung two times. Raunchy, racy and risqué are all words that could be used to describe lyricism on this song. I would not recommend for PG 13 listeners! LOL.

The artiste basically sings about sex and how he would like to explore it in all ramifications, so to speak. It is evident in the lyrics…

How many, many, many, many round-round-round-round

She dey bounce on my thing with my song for background

I dey give her new-new style, she say, “Wow-wow-wow-wow”

When I start to go too deep, she say, “Ouch-ouch-ouch-ouch”

 Quite graphic without using all the nasty words to paint the detail.

Dirty is one of those tracks that you would listen to and maybe not necessarily vibe to immediately. But slowly and surely, it will creep up on you and have you playing it on repeat in no time.

Give it a listen today.

Ayodele Johnson

Ayodelé is a Lagos-based journalist and the Content and Editorial Coordinator at Meiza. All around the megacity, I am steering diverse lifestyle magazine audiences with ingenious hacks and insights that spur fast, informed decisions in their busy lives.