Tems’ Message Is Community, Heritage and Fulfilled Destiny 

Following an incredible five-month run,  2x Grammy-winning, Oscar-nominated Tems wrapped up her Born in the Wild tour in November 2024 with the final show in Sydney, Australia. With one world tour, a debut album, two EPs, and a handful of underground and big-name collaborations under her belt, Tems is building her empire and establishing herself as a household name, one award ceremony at a time. In addition to her critically acclaimed discography, she has also acquired quite a reputation in the corporate world through a repertoire of prestigious brand deals and partnerships with names such as Burberry and Tommy Hilfiger, amongst others. San Diego FC’s recent announcement that Tems has joined the Club’s ownership group through her company, The Leading Vibe, only adds to her ever-growing list of calculated business alliances secured by her perceptive management team. From magazine covers to red carpet interviews, the world has its eye on Tems, and Tems, in turn, is determined to use her career to deliver her message to the world. In a 2023 interview with Kendrick Lamar, she expressed, “You have to understand the reason why you’re doing what you’re doing … you have a story to share, a message to give.” If Tems has a message for us, she has done an excellent job of passing it across – her career is a story of community, heritage, and fulfilled destiny. 

To Tems, community encompasses much more than just her team – the small but incredibly well-oiled machine behind her, made up of people who see her as a ‘kindred spirit’ and explain that their relationship is deeper than just business. Her community includes her family, her friends, the Nigerian alte music scene, which was instrumental to her career growth, and her ‘Rebel Gang’ – her fanbase which spans across continents. She expressed to Interview Magazine that she loves being around artists and that collaboration was integral to the blossoming of her career – “There’s something about the energy when there’s a bunch of people creating that is contagious.” 

We have only as much insight into Tems’ personal life as she allows us to have, and yet we can easily identify her mother and her friends who she is almost constantly surrounded by; they’re all over her TikTok page, we see them on her instagram, on her Grammy winning record Love Me Jeje we hear Dunsin Wright on the opening line “tell me when to say ‘love me jeje’” and in the corresponding music video, both Dunsin and Tems’ best friend Yvonne Onyanta made cameos. Although she has reached unprecedented levels of fame, her circle grounds her and keeps her levelheaded even as she ventures into unfamiliar territory. We see her commitment to community in her collaborations within the Nigerian alte music scene, which goes back years. Whether through features or through lending her vocals to the background of tracks, her presence within the community is felt deeply. She has worked with everybody from Odunsi to DRB Lasgidi to underground acts like Oddio Tribe, attentive listeners can hear her crooning vocals in the background of Boj and Ajebutter’s Too Many Women and she has proven to be an integral cog in Show Dem Camp’s Palm Wine Music machine, featuring on several projects in the series. 

Her team is highly visible, often joining her on red carpets, awards ceremony stages and even campaigns to the extent that Dunsin Wright (her stylist) is instantly recognisable and several fans have begun to notice and inquire into ‘the two men always on stage with Tems’ (in reference to managers Muyiwa Awoniyi and Tec (Wale Davies)). In a piece of music industry legend, Tems met manager Tec at a studio session which included Spax, Funbi, and Tomi Thomas – key members of the Palm Wine Music framework spearheaded by Show Dem Camp (made up of rappers Tec and Ghost) which was immensely instrumental in platforming Tems early in her career. Although by this point, Tec had heard her single Mr Rebel, he revealed in a 2021 episode of I Said What I Said Podcast that as opposed to him chasing her down to work with her, Tems, who was familiar with his work, asked him to manage her. This pattern of seeing the value in other creatives’ work has been consistent throughout Tems’ career. In an industry that often pits female artistes against each other, Tems has developed solid friendships with other female African musicians such as Ayra Starr and Dami Oniru, shrugging off comparisons with the calm confidence we have come to associate with her – “I don’t want to be queen, there’s no throne … we’re all winning anyway so let’s all win together”.

For Tems, who recently won her second GRAMMY award for Best African Music Performance with Love Me Jeje, she and her team have a responsibility to inspire a generation. The single is a fresh take on the Nigerian classic by Seyi Sodimu and Shaffy Bello, paying homage to Afrobeats pioneers while signalling to her global audience that she remains entrenched in the Nigerian sounds and culture of which she is a product.  Showcasing authentic African talent is important to her, as expressed by her manager, Tec who in an interview with TurnTable Charts emphasized that, “the world is finally paying attention and we have to create our own narrative”.

To Nigerian fans who witnessed Tems’ rise in real time, the narrative is clear and consistent – she is a Nigerian woman with authentic, homegrown talent who intends to open the doors for more Nigerian women with authentic talent to share the stage.

She had her start performing at several open mic events, including Femme Africa’s first ever all female Showcase in 2018 and has been a frequent act on Show Dem Camp’s Palm Wine Festival stage, as recently as 2022 after she had won her first GRAMMY. Amongst the platforms that elevated her during the early years of her career, we have 90’s Baby Kickback which as far back as 2017 was playing her songs. 

Tems is vocal about the support she received from African platforms and continues to champion the view that there is genuine talent in Nigeria, which is often stifled and must instead be nurtured through local platforms such as these. In her acceptance speech at the 22nd BET Awards where she went home with two awards – Best Collaboration with Wizkid and Justin Bieber for Essence and Best International Act – the first Nigerian to achieve this feat, she dedicated her awards to young women daring to dream stating, “Where I’m from, things like this don’t happen … this is a dream”.

She continues to champion her heritage not just through her music and philanthropy, but through fashion as well. Stylist Dunsin Wright has emphasized a preference for comfort when dressing Tems and leans towards Nigerian designers such as Lisa Folawiyo, whose pieces give her the confidence she can only get from clothes which are based on her body type and background. Her style choices are aimed at taking up space while being black, African and completely herself – a concept that was actualized through her infamous Oscars 2022 gown (white Lever Couture). While the international audience might have been alarmed by the flamboyance of the dress, Nigerian fans were unperturbed – as the first Nigerian to be nominated for an Oscar, it was expected that her outfit would be as momentous as the occasion. True to form, Tems’ only response to the discussion around the dress was to say that “the dress is a way of … celebrating my country, and celebrating the people that are rooting for me. This dress says ‘Yes, yes, I am here!’”

Over countless interviews, Tems has expressed her belief in pre-ordination, spirituality, and in being exactly where she ought to be in her career and with herself – “You do yourself a disservice trying to be someone else … be who you are.” She had loved music since she was a child at Dowen College and credits music with helping her find her voice. Before her fame, Tems worked at a digital marketing company up until 2018 when she quit her job and released Mr Rebel after seeing a message in her devotional calling her to “serve others.” “Deep down, I knew this was what I wanted to do,” she asserts “and worst-case scenario, I’ll end up on the streets begging for money, and I was willing to do that for the music.

The Tems we know today could not be further from begging on the streets for money – the organic nature of her record-breaking career – from the success of her first single to the almost casual way she assembled her dream team – only strengthens her assertion that her career is pre-ordained, and we are inclined to believe her. After all, it’s not every day we witness an artist who has been able to leverage the right sound, the right people, and the right timing to reach such startling levels of success.