Renowned musician, Crown Uzama, popularly known as Shallipopi, has disclosed that his fellow artist, Rema, served as a source of inspiration and motivation for him and other artists from Edo State, Nigeria. Shallipopi described the ‘Calm Down’ crooner as a guiding light for the local talent.
During a recent appearance on The Zero Conditions podcast, the Benin-native singer opened up about the impact of Rema’s success on the Edo State music community. He expressed, “In Benin, we had very little hope of attaining widespread recognition in the music industry. We held the belief that musical stardom was reserved for those based in Lagos and Abuja. It was only when Rema emerged, and D’Prince signed him to Jonzing World, that we realized the possibility of artists from Benin achieving stardom. His success gave us hope. If Rema could make the crossover, so could we.”
Reflecting on their journey, Shallipopi fondly recounted, “As Rema ventured to Lagos, we closely followed his progress. We were his loyal fans from day one, and he is aware of this. We’ve been tracking his career from his early days of sharing freestyle videos on social media to his captivating trap EP and subsequent rise to stardom. He was the catalyst that instilled in us the belief that we too could make it.”
