Rema Closes Out Rolling Stone’s Future of Music Showcase at SXSW

While Houston is the Texas town better known to serve Afrobeats lovers, Rema fans flocked to Austin for his headlining set that closed out Rolling Stone’s Future of Music showcase. Rappers Samara Cyn and Anycia, who took the stage before him, couldn’t contain their excitement for Rema’s show either — hyping the crowd up for his appearance after hers, Anycia joked that they might find her on the floor with them. From the time the Atlanta upstart closed with her Latto-assisted banger “Back Outside” to the moment Rema’s welcome video filled the massive screens, the Moody Theater steadily filled with eager and diverse attendees — cliques of girls filming each other, men ready to mosh, and everyone in between. 

Midwestern MC AJ McQueen put on a set of lyrically dexterous hip-hop, heavy on his very strong latest album, Sorry Ma, I Was Distracted. McQueen has said he “grew up in two bad parts of St. Louis” and has described Sorry Ma as his “origin story.” Speaking of ma: Backstage, McQueen talked about buying his mom a home in St. Louis.

Tennessee-born, L.A.-based rapper Samara Cyn later took the stage for a set that drew from her 2024 album The Drive Home, which Rolling Stone‘s Andre Gee has praised as “a diaristic project” that shows off how Cyn’s winding life path — she’s lived a nomadic existence — “inculcated her with adaptability and open-mindedness.”

Anycia hyped up the crowd, sometimes with specific compliments (“You so fuckin’ pretty, talk about a face, baby,” she told one fan) and generally kept the energy extremely high. Her set, like her very good 2024 mixtape Princess Pop That, showed off a brashness and confidence that’s ATL to the core – and all about being herself. Then, it was time for Rema.

“Africa is the future of music because it’s unique and it knows no boundary,” he said in his intro clip, filmed on the set of his Future of Music cover shoot. The issue makes him the first Black African solo star to be featured on the cover and the first Afrobeats act to earn the distinction in the magazine’s history. “I feel the sense of Africa in everything, and I feel like this is just the beginning. There’s so much more that we’re here to express. I’m grateful to represent Afrobeats.”

After the video cut, Rema’s DJ Jumbee brought in a track of intense drums and guitar fit for a rockstar, with fierce blue and silver lights frantically flashing to match. Rema smoothly sauntered up the stage’s stairs and towards the center of it under a halo of spotlight, shrouded in a heavy coat and thick jeans as if it hadn’t been in the 90s all day — hey, when you’re cool, you’re cool. As the first notes of “March Am,” the menacing intro to his critically acclaimed sophomore album Heis, rang out, the screen that boasted his demure interview turned into a dark sky exploding with bats, symbols Rema has adopted as a relic of his hometown of Benin City, Nigeria. “Every evening, there’s always bats in the sky, just flying to their cave. Early in the morning, around 5 a.m., they all fly to the Oba palace, the king’s palace, which is quite spiritual,” he said in a previous interview with Rolling Stone. “In other cities, it is quite scary for them to just see bats in the sky, but, yeah, it is normal in Benin.” (Bats are also a familiar part of life in Austin, in a nice parallel.)

He closed out the Heis opening numbers with the party starter “Yayo,” before honoring his invitation to the Future of Music showcase with one caveat: “Shout out Rolling Stone, I love each and every one of y’all that came out to be here tonight,” he said, before reminding the crowd, “You know how it goes though — when Rema’s onstage, it’s a Rema party.” The sea of ardent fans answered his call to repeat his tagline, too. “When I say ‘Another,’ you say….” he led. “Banger!” they exclaimed. 

Though “March Am” is a high-energy track, Rema made sure to let the momentum build steadily — the last hook clearly resonated with him as he stomped his foot and slapped his leg to his staccato bars. He was joined by an array of dancers in baggy tuxes and bright white tennis shoes, who then crowded him for “Azaman,” armed with throwback corded phones that complemented their bouncy choreography. “Call azaman,” Rema cries over and over in that song, a flex in Nigerian pidgin for how much money he has on demand; the phones were a quirky play on the phrase. “I dey find money like say na Shazam,” he teases on the track (Translation: “I get money so easily, it’s like I’m just Shazaming it and it appears.”)

Rema slinked in and out of the varied vibes he’s curated over his six years in the limelight. He shed his coat and teased fans with peeks at his abs to complement sexy singles like his remix of Darkoo’s “Favourite Girl”(one of Rolling Stone’s top Afropop songs of 2024), his debut “Dumebi” (“If you know you’re in the crowd tonight and you been rocking with me since day one, 2019 make some noise!” he beckoned), and “Soundgasm.” That one, he revealed in his cover story, was a special kind of gift for a former lover. “I recorded that on Valentine’s Day. So that was a very freaky day for everybody,” he said. 

For “Soundgasm,” Rema was flanked by a dancer with long platinum hair who moved like she could top the bill at one of Houston’s iconic strip clubs if she wanted to. She was joined by a just-as-talented colleague for the super-powered party song “Bounce.” Later, things got sentimental for his record-breaking hit “Calm Down,” the crowd welcoming it to the set with a roar that vibrated through the theater. And while that song is one of Afrobeats’ biggest crossover hits ever, he honored his roots with dexterous footwork for the hometown anthem “Benin Boys,” complimented by bright graphics that resembled the city’s famous bronzes — historic sculptures pillaged by Europeans in colonial warfare that those far-off nations still hold in their museums. (In his cover story, Rema told Rolling Stone that supporting local politicians’ efforts to get the bronzes back to Benin City is a priority of his.)

To close out his electric set, the mosh-ready men got what they came for when Rema summoned the dark energy of “Ozeba,” a Heis hit modeled after a Nollywood horror film. “If you wanna take off your shoes, take off your shoes,” he said before it, “If you wanna take off your wig, take off your wig.” While shoes and wigs seemed to remain mostly intact, the crowd took the spirit of the invite to heart, jumping, screaming, and sweating to the sound of an Afrobeats visionary.