In February 2023, Tems won a Grammy for a song by Future and an Oscar nomination for a song by Rihanna, in the same season. Two years earlier, most of the world had never heard her name.
Temilade Openiyi, known as Tems, is from Lagos. She began releasing music independently in 2018, and her 2020 EP For Broken Ears built a strong following. Then “Essence” happened.
“Essence”
Wizkid’s “Essence”, featuring Tems, was a track on his 2020 album Made in Lagos. It grew slowly, then took over. In 2021 a remix featuring Justin Bieber pushed it into the Billboard Hot 100 top ten, and it peaked at number 9, the first Nigerian song to reach the top ten of that chart. Tems’ voice, low and unhurried, was the part many new listeners remembered.
American stars noticed. Drake featured her on “Fountains” from his 2021 album Certified Lover Boy, and Future built “Wait for U”, from his 2022 album I Never Liked You, around a sample of her song “Higher”. Tems was credited as a featured artist alongside Drake.
The Grammy
“Wait for U” went to number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2022. At the 65th Grammy Awards in February 2023, it won Best Melodic Rap Performance. Tems shared the award as a featured artist, a milestone for a Nigerian woman at the Grammys.
The Oscar nomination
Tems also co-wrote “Lift Me Up”, Rihanna’s song for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, written in tribute to Chadwick Boseman. The song was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song, putting Tems’ name on the Oscar ballot beside Rihanna, Ryan Coogler and Ludwig Göransson. At the ceremony in March 2023, she wore a dramatic white gown that drew complaints from people seated behind her and made headlines of its own.
Born in the Wild
Tems took her time with a debut album. Born in the Wild arrived in June 2024, carrying “Love Me JeJe”, a song built on a sample from Seyi Sodimu’s 1997 Nigerian hit of the same name. At the 67th Grammy Awards in February 2025, “Love Me JeJe” won the first ever Grammy for Best African Music Performance, a category created that year.
The win meant something beyond the trophy. The first award in a category built for African music went to a song rooted in a 1990s Lagos classic, reworked by a woman who had started out releasing music on her own.
Why she stands out
Tems does not sound like most Afrobeats. Her songs lean towards R&B, soul and alternative pop, and her voice is deep and textured. She writes her own songs and has spoken about wanting control over her work. That independence helps explain why so many American artists sought her out: she brought something they could not find elsewhere.
Her career in the United States began with a sample of her voice. By 2025 she had a Grammy in her own name, for a song she wrote about Lagos love.
