Nigerian writer and multidisciplinary artist Eloghosa Osunde recently penned a feature on Nigerian Afrobeats artist Rema for the cover story of Dazed Magazine’s Spring 2025 issue, released in print March 6, 2025.

This is Osunde’s first time writing for Dazed magazine, a platform for alternative style and culture that champions “radical fashion and youth culture, defining the times with a vanguard of next generation writers, stylists and image makers.” They were previously profiled by Dazed for their Autumn 2024 issue.

Described by Osunde as “Afrobeat’s Own Rave Lord,” Rema is a Nigerian singer, songwriter and rapper. He first gained attention with his 2019 song “Dumebi” and went on to achieve international recognition with his 2022 single “Calm Down”, thanks to a remix with Selena Gomez that peaked at number three on the Billboard Hot 100. His second album, HEIS (2024), was nominated for the Best Global Music Album at the 67th Annual Grammy Awards.

Osunde talks to Rema about being Edo artists, their shared origin from Benin City, and Rema’s skyrocketing career. Osunde writes about Rema as a singular artist of our time:

Once in many moons, an artist will enter the world and people will respond to the energy their work stirs around itself.

In the feature, Osunde and Rema discuss the energies that go into their art making and the shared cultural heritage that inspires them. The cover story reveals two ambitious artists at the beginning of their careers, dedicated to their creative work, and on their way to even bigger things.

Eloghosa Osunde is multimedia artist and the author of Vagabonds! (2023), a finalist for the Edmund White Prize For Fiction and the Nommo Awards for Best Novel, and the forthcoming Necessary Fiction, both published by Penguin Random House. They have collaborated with fashion brands Victoria’s Secret and Orange Culture and had their work featured at Lagos and New York Fashion Weeks. Their writing has appeared in Paris Review, Granta, Gulf Coast, Georgia Review, Guernica, Lithub, Catapult, Berlin Quarterly and their visual art in Vogue, The New York Times and Paper Magazine.