iMessage chats reveals Rema as the alledged artist who stole Omah Lay’s album idea

Drama unfolded on Nigerian social media on August 12 when an Instagram handle by the name of “the story of an angel,” alleged to be Omah Lay’s burner account, shared a screenshot of a chat between the Afrobeats star and Grammy-nominated hitmaker Rema.

The chat dated December 16, 2023, showed Omah Lay and Rema discussing the possibility of a collaborative effort.

In the screenshot shared via the Instagram story of the story of an angel account, Omah Lay stated that he believed he and Rema were the only artists capable of upping the tempo of Nigerian music, which he thought at the time was too slow.

The chat also showed that the two exchanged songs, with Rema sending him a file titled ‘Now I Know,’ which happens to be the last track on the ‘HEIS’ album.

In return, Omah Lay sent him a file titled ‘mara rough’, which he stated to be the song he was working on at the time.

The chat showed that Rema indicated his interest in the sound and requested that a space be created for him to jump on it. A request Omah Lay acceded to.

In another post, the handle shared that Omah Lay went through a difficult time and took a break after finding out that Rema had developed his idea into an album.

The break was said to have lasted until June 28, when he returned on stage in Brussels, where he looked “unstable”.

The post also added that Omah Lay has since forgiven himself and intends to “exert the same level of trauma he suffered in his hands of his enemies and anyone who will or has tampered with his craft”.

Readers will recall that in a 2024 interview, Omah Lay revealed that he had to scrap his entire album concept for a new one after an artist he trusted stole his idea.

As of the time of this report, Omah Lay was yet to distance himself from the Instagram account alleged to be his burner.

Rema, who recently shared the author’s note of his album ‘HEIS’ on X, is yet to react to these allegations.