Music star Rema graced the Afrobeats Podcast by Adesope “Live” Olajide aka ShopsyDoo wherein they had an in-depth discussion on his career so far. One of the last questions asked Rema pertained to his teddy bear branding to which he gave a satisfactory answer.
“What is the story about the teddy bear? Where did this teddy bear come from? What is the story?” was the question asked Rema which made him give a detailed background of his association with the stuffed animal to his branding. “This is one side of me I don’t usually talk about. I don’t even know if my close friends know about this one.”, Rema begins, “The period where I lost my dad . . . you know, monies from visitors and all—I used to buy a lot of toys, I bought teddy bear one period.”, he continues. Rema would go on to relate how having the teddy bear gave him a personal companion which he could tell his innermost thoughts and vent, “I had a phase with the teddy bear, it was a teddy that couldn’t talk, couldn’t judge me, [I] just tell it anything, random ideas . . . I just [talked] with the teddy to be honest. I wasn’t that social after I lost my dad . . . different things were making me question life . . . things were just quite mixed up. I just had a different perception of human beings and I was like ‘Wow! Okay, I need to get a nonhuman being to be related with because these [occurrences didn’t] seem real’” but he found a confidant in the teddy bear.
Although he has outgrown the teddy bear phase, Rema speaks on the sentimental value of that to his branding as an artiste, “Every aesthetic you see today, I feel they all had an impact in the phase of my life.” That we have seen Rema do by associating his artistry with the teddy bear emoji to being spotted with the stuffed animal in public and photoshoots, especially in the earlier days of his career.