On “Lift Me Up”, Tems And Rihanna Show They Were Destined To Work Together

Tems and Rihanna recently worked together on the Lift Me Up track for the new Black Panther movie, Wakanda Forever. The first time we saw Tems, whose real name is Temilade Openiyi, meet with Rihanna was at the latter’s New York Savage x Fenty show back in September 2021. While Tems and Rihanna linking up was a dream come true for a lot of fans, many began manifesting a collaboration between the two singers because of how excited they seemed to meet each other.

At the time Tems met with Rihanna, the Work singer hadn’t released a solo song since her 2016 Anti album, and any new music in over a year since she featured on PARTYNEXTDOOR’s 2020 single BELIEVE IT, so the chances that we would see Rihanna and Tems on a song together were close to none—but there was hope. Tems and Rihanna seemed to be chatty during their meet-up, and Rihanna even followed the Try Me singer on Instagram not long after, leading fans to believe that a potential collaboration was just around the corner—and it was.

Fast forward to 2022, after a 6-year hiatus from the music scene in which she built both her lingerie and beauty companies, Savage x Fenty and Fenty Beauty respectively, with a combined valuation of almost $4 billion according to Forbes, Rihanna finally dropped a new single that was co-written by Tems. Fans had been begging Rihanna for new music, and when she first announced on the 26th of October that she’d be releasing a new song, no one anticipated that the Barbadian singer would tap Nigeria’s Tems; but it was a pleasant surprise.

One thing a lot of people don’t know is that at their meet-up at the Savage x Fenty show last year, Rihanna co-signed Tems. Tems revealed how Rihanna emphatically said to her, “enough of that humble shit, you better own it.” Tems was on everyone’s radar, and Rihanna wasn’t an exception. Tems’ sound was taking over in the United States with songs like Free Mind and Higher gaining major airplay.

To be fair, Tems and Rihanna have a lot in common, and it was almost predictable that the two singers would also exhibit some chemistry on a record. With songs like Tems’ Try Me and Rihanna’s Hard announcing both singers as women not to be messed with, the singers operate on a similar wavelength and have similar sounding alto voices. And according to Zikoko, both artists have also exhibited similar vibes on songs like Crazy Things & Work, Found & Looveeeeeee Song, Damages & Bitch Better Have My Money, SDC’s Live Life & T.I.’s Live Your Life, Avoid Things & Fading, Higher & Higher, Free Mind & Redemption Song (Bob Marley Cover), Vibe Out & Cheers (Drink to That), and Looku Looku & Stupid in Love. 

After her 2020 single Damages and featuring on Wizkid’s smash hit song Essence, Tems released her 2021 EP, If Orange Was A Place, which featured songs like Crazy Things, Vibe Out and Found; and indeed Tems found crazy things. She has gone on to secure high-value collaborations like a feature on Drake’s Certified Lover Boy album, Future’s I NEVER LIKED YOU album, Beyoncé’s RENAISSANCE album, and bag a Grammy nomination, two BET awards, an NAACP Image Awards, and a Soul Train Music Award.

At this point, Tems was experiencing massive growth in her career; performing at sold-out venues to audiences around the world, and garnering massive streaming numbers, she was definitely one of the most booked African artists in 2021. After an impressive roster of collaborations, it was obvious that Tems had to take it up a notch, and Riri, sharing some similarities with Tems, welcomed an opportunity to work together.

Expressing her excitement about working with Rihanna on Lift Me Up, Tems shared the stark portrait of Rihanna that serves as the song’s cover art on her Instagram, writing, “Blessed to have written this song in honour of Chadwick Boseman, and even more blessed to hear the baddest @badgalriri voice it to perfection.” Rihanna didn’t waste any time sending love to Tems by writing, “It’s the pen for me … love to you sistren” with a trio of prayer hands, heart and flexing emojis. The post also attracted the attention of the likes of Chance the Rapper, Stefflon Don and SZA, with the latter praising the song by commenting, “INCREDIBLE! Such a beautiful record.”

One thing to note is that Tems has been a longtime fan of Rihanna’s music. In 2019, she put out a tweet where she talked about being able to relate to the Umbrella singer on her “new music tweets” subtly letting her audience know that new music would come whenever it was ready and they shouldn’t rush her.

https://twitter.com/temsbaby/status/1128378373682733056?s=46&t=yXCpK7DUjUppbZtk8HPhyA

Although Tems and Rihanna haven’t sung a song together, Tems’ lyrics being sung by the Diamonds singer, is a step in the right direction. Tems going from being a fan of Rihanna to writing for her in just a few years is not only proof of the similar wavelengths the artists operate on, but that they were probably destined to work together and it would have happened one way or the other. Even though it’s not the collaboration we were expecting from Tems and Riri, it’ll have to do while we either wait for Tems to feature Rihanna on her upcoming album, or for Rihanna to drop a Tems-assisted single in the future.