From a marketing executive to making Barak Obama’s favourite 2020 music playlist: The story of Nigeria’s latest music sensation “Tems”
Even though the noise today is about her collaboration with multi-award music winner WizKid in a song titled “Essence” which has literally lighted charts both national and internally and made it to almost all music playlists, including that of former US President, Barack Obama, this Nigerian songwriter, singer and producer was initially not looking at the mic due to her “heavy” voice.
Yes, she originally did not think she could sing, in an interview with Fader, she revealed that she thought her unique voice was too heavy to sing, hence her commitment to her studies. Tems has two degrees to her credit and was heading in the way of a full-fledged career in Marketing. This was also a path her family was fully in support of as they felt it was a more “prudent choice”.
Before her duet with WizKid released earlier in the summer went viral, Tems had released other bangers including “Mr. Rebel” which became a hit in 2018, others are “Looku” and “Try Me” a fans favorite which earned her loyal fans who call themselves “rebels”.
Due to how wide and fast her effort with WizKid “Essence” has gone, it was not really surprising that it has made it into the playlists of major celebrities and former world leaders including Obama.
Singing is not the only side to Tems though; it’s a fact that she self-produced 90% of the tracks on her 2020 EP for “Brown Ears”. In an interview with Okay Africa, she revealed that after having a track breakdown with Apple Music, she began working on the song “Ice T” by generating a series of sounds and tweaking samples that formed the base of the song. The entire process was so special to her that she described it as “intimate”.
As a proud fan of American multi-award musician Alicia Keys, Tems recalls that the first she ever learnt to sing properly was “If I Ain’t Got You” by the same lady.
In June 2021, she made her entry into the UK Singles Chart when “Ginger” peaked at number 61, while in the US it debuted at number 82 on this weeks Hot100, her first entry on the chart.
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