Upstairs in the bathroom insulated from the blaring pulse of Afrobeats and dancehall, women in black miniskirts and tight dresses were drying their arms and legs. We’d withstood a torrential downpour to get into New York City’s Musica nightclub for Rema ’s Heis listening party, celebrating the second album of the same name he released last month to critical acclaim . He had first christened the album with romp in London, wild clips from which blasted around the internet.
Now, he was bringing the noise stateside. Though Rema had long called his style of Afrobeats “Afro-rave,” there was little particularly rave-ready about it until Heis , a jarringly intense evolution of the Nigerian party music that defined the early 2010s in the diaspora. The event demanded an all-black dress code, matching both the album’s dark energy and, incidentally, the stormy night.
All the girls standing in the line for the bathroom looked pristine, even with rain-waved hair and damp skin. Musica’s main floor is flooded with bodies well before Rema’s arrival, with local but global DJs Mahogany, Brandon Blue, and mOma readying the crowd. Alongside professional dancers hyping the crowd on stage, mOma, who co-hosts the popular traveling day party Everyday People around the world, runs a set that includes an edit of soca house classic “Work” (“What ya waiting for? Put ya back in it! Just a little more!” goes its popular refrain sung by Denise Belfon) and last year’s amapiano hit �.