Like many loving moms, Témìládè Openiyi’s mother prophesied that her daughter could be extraordinary. She had imagined her child woman on a extra conventional path (school, workplace job) as she reared her, however when Témìládè – whose identify means “The crown is mine” in Yoruba – determined as an alternative to remake the face of Nigerian pop in her picture as Tems, the mom reminded her baby of her future. “‘Don’t overlook the identify I advised you and she or he’s a particular child,’” Tems’s mother mentioned on her first EP, 2020’s For Damaged Ears, recalling what she advised others earlier than Tems was born. Simply over three years later – after seeing her daughter have extra success as a musician than most artists will know of their lifetime – Tems’ mom reaffirms her function in a spoken bit on Born within the Wild, the debut album Tems has already managed to shift tradition forward of.
“So my pricey, I can see now why you might be stumbling a bit and having some psychological doubts,” Tems’ mother says on the interlude “Particular Child,” coming after an introductory confessional set to only guitar, harking back to the way in which her “Témìládè Interlude” adopted the exceptional, organ-driven “Interference” on Ears. “By no means lose your focus. Don’t be on the market to please anyone. You’re solely there to please God.” Afterward the album, her managers are heard equally attempting to steer her straight: be the great on the earth, they advise her. Sing the reality. Although she’s been broadly beloved for her frilless, heartstring-tugging sound since stealing the scene on Wizkid’s hit “Essence” and dominating R&B radio with “Free Thoughts,” Born within the Wild reveals that her newfound fame, like her life in Lagos earlier than it, has been much more perilous than she let on. “‘The way it really feel?’ It’s killing me,” she sings plainly on “Burning.”
Tems has labored exhausting for this. She bucked the standard Afrobeats common in her nation to make extra various music and needed to be taught to supply for herself to take action. In a current interview with Nigerian YouTuber Korty EO, she mentioned that as she navigated the male-dominated Nigerian studio scene on her personal, she’d need to put on further dishevelled garments to cowl up the shapely determine she’s solely just lately come to accent. To keep away from advances, she tried to make it painstakingly clear that she was solely there to sing. She carried an analogous air of seriousness into her early ascent. Her evolution within the public eye is obvious: although she’s persistently given the identical attractive Mezzo-Soprano on stage as on wax, she’s grown extra animated, playful in each motion and vocal reimaginings – examine her first Tiny Desk to her second, launched this week.
Born within the Wild measures the soul-work it’s taken to get right here. All of it – the skilled, the familial, the non secular – has paid off on an album so wealthy that the listening expertise is a bodily one as a lot as it’s emotional. It’s made timeless with luscious, instrumental manufacturing that she spearheaded alongside Ghanaian Afropop maestro GuiltyBeats and the very sparing use of solely six different producers, together with experts Sarz, London on Da Monitor, and P2J. Collectively, they curate a seamless mix of stripped down ballads, the cool of Nineties R&B with flecks of SWV and Sade, joyous highlife, Afro-dance music like Amapiano, and rugged hip-hop (her rap efficiency on “T-Unit” is particularly endearing). It’s made transcendent with Tems’ placing supply of her personal biting observations and calls for of the world and herself.
The wild that Tems was born in is greater than the bustling megacity of roughly 24 million individuals that’s her hometown, the place, she advised Rolling Stone in 2021, “All people’s in survival mode. . . .If all people is attempting to outlive then no person has love.” As she defined in a current Apple Music interview, her wilderness is a state of being. The titular observe is a jolting communion between Tems and stirring strings the place she remembers how her lifetime of confusion and solitude blossomed below the giving hand of a benevolent energy. “And the world is mine,” she bellows thrice. “You’re altering all of my points.”
That “Born within the Wild” offers within the gratitude and style of a up to date Christian music doesn’t really feel like a coincidence. When the album’s first single “Me & U” dropped in October, it raised issues that Tems’ revered pen had turned sophomoric, and a few anxious the attraction of her freeform lyrics had run its course. It’s easy, repetitive: “That is my determination,” “I don’t assume you pay attention,” “Make me your individual,” “Solely me and also you,” she sings repeatedly. However the music’s energy comes from Tems strolling the high quality line between universality and specificity that one of the best songwriters so typically do. “Me & U” basically slips gospel into right this moment’s secular Afrobeats. When its music video was launched, depicting Tems draped in a white robe, standing ankle deep in huge waters, she rapidly knocked down the circulating notion that she was embodying deities of indigenous Yoruba religion. “Really it’s about Jesus Christ instructing me the right way to stroll on water,” she mentioned in a fast however dense exaltation on X, previously Twitter. “I’ve been endlessly remodeled. I’m His endlessly. THATS JUST ME DOE.”
“Me & U” hinted on the album’s central theme of residing for a better function – in relationships, in her work, in her emotional regulation. Tems does a few of her most evocative writing but right here, like on “Boy O Boy,” the place she vividly describes a person she needs to strangle whereas quietly struggling the physique aches his “garbage” has induced her. Tems advised Korty EO that she’s by no means actually been in love – love, she says, is when somebody can look straight into your open ass and nonetheless need you. Nonetheless, she appears to sing about coming shut to like on Born within the Wild, however even songs which are seemingly romantic or sensual really feel non secular, typically particularly within the Christian lexicon. Take the heartbreak balm “Unlucky,” which she launched on her current Tiny Desk efficiency as a music about her falling sufferer to somebody. It really finds her empowered. “Possibly it’s lucky you’re unlucky,” she sings with loads of optimism and a little bit disgust. “Within the phrases of my mom, I’m residing in victory.”
The album’s biggest success, although, is in the way in which its metaphysical themes eclipse any explicit faith. That is particularly resonant with the way in which current generations have come to have interaction with spirituality. So many people are newbie astrologers, yogis and meditators, we channel our ethical compases into activism and music. We’re the generations that social media tried to destroy, residing in an period the place psychological well being crises proliferate and long-lauded establishments crumble together with their facades of integrity. All this has pushed many people into typically untraditional psychological and non secular practices – a few of us are the primary in our households to go to remedy, a few of us do tarot. Tems has her God and assuredly manages to make that distinctive relationship ubiquitous.
In all this, Born within the Wild is intense, however not extreme. “Wickedest” is primed for the dancefloor and features a transient pattern of the 1999 Pan-African social gathering anthem “1er Gaou” by Magic System; a pattern she’s good to not overwork. The only “Love Me Jeje” is a masterpiece, soaked in solar and major-key dopamine, communal in name and response. “Maintain On,” the ultimate observe, tackles the longing and ache of her hit “Free Thoughts” from a spot of hard-earned peace, and looks like being rocked to sleep by the ocean.
If there’s any word to offer this budding visionary, it’s that she ought to have challenged herself to make the album extra concise. Eighteen tracks is simply too many to completely have interaction with without delay, regardless of how particular they’re. The cheeky blues of “You in My Face” would have served higher as an interlude than a full music, the contemplative “Free Fall” with J. Cole would have been higher off a brief lower of simply his standout verse as nicely. She proves herself as a rapper nicely sufficient on “T-Unit” that the opposite hip-hop music, “Flip Me Up,” may have been sacrificed – or vice versa.
However Tems is so deeply adored – in a manner US media has but to completely grasp – that the impulse to match the large expectations for this album by giving a lot is comprehensible. Apple Music’s Eddie Francis marveled at this: “There’s this sure response you get from individuals. Individuals love you. Does that get bizarre?” Tems responded by noting how pure that love feels to her, although she is aware of it’s not regular. Maybe that is what her mother noticed coming.