The three-times-certified platinum file, which debuted at primary on US Billboard Sizzling 100, samples ‘Higher’ from her EP For Damaged Ears. Consequently, she has acquired the Grammys, America’s most prestigious award for music, for her featured vocals and composition.
Not a stranger to worldwide accolades, Tems has acquired two NAACP Picture Awards, two BET Awards and two Soul Practice Music Awards in her quick however astonishingly eventful musical profession.
She lately earned nominations for Academy Award for Greatest Unique Music and the Golden Globe Award for Greatest Unique Music for her co-writing credit on Rihanna’s ‘Lift Me Up’. If she clinches both of those awards, she would be the first Nigerian girl to be so adorned.
First grammy
Her first Grammy nomination was for her dazzling vocal efficiency on Wizkid’s sleeper-hit single ‘Essence’ within the newly debuted Greatest World Music Efficiency class. Though ‘Essence’ misplaced that award to Pakistani Arooj Aftab, it stays one of many largest Afrobeats songs globally and unarguably Tems’ foot within the door to the worldwide musicscape.
When 27-year-old Lagos-born Temilade Openiyi stop her day job in full pursuit of her musical profession in 2018, she most likely didn’t anticipate this meteoric rise. She taught herself music manufacturing by watching YouTube movies, produced her first single ‘Mr Rebel’ in the identical 12 months and has summarily not seemed again.
With two well-received EPs — For Damaged Ears (2020) and If Orange Was a Place (2021) — in comparatively scanty discography, her trajectory has been a brisk ascent to stardom with ceiling-shattering accomplishments and a nod to the maxim, much less is extra. For an artist who has courted the laidback ethos of the choice music scene, the street much less travelled, within the male-dominated testosterone-driven Afrobeats trade, Tems is the unlikely chanteuse to have blown into the stratosphere.
Exhausting work + expertise
Her accomplishment is a series response of laborious work, igniting expertise and a smidgen of luck, however it has additionally not been with out its low moments. In December 2020, Tems, alongside fellow Nigerian musician Omah Lay, have been arrested for contravening Covid-19 protocols whereas acting at an unauthorised live performance in Kampala, Uganda. They have been each arraigned earlier than the courtroom and remanded in police custody for about two days earlier than diplomatic interventions repatriated them again dwelling. Final weekend, Tems wore a stunning white cut-out gown on the Roc Nation Pre-Grammys brunch in LA, hobnobbing with the ability couple Jay-Z and Beyonce.
Tems meets Beyoncé and Jay-Z on the Roc Nation brunch pic.twitter.com/NRmeAtZZoI
— 🐬 @𝗼𝗻𝗲𝗷𝗼𝗯𝗹𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗯𝗼𝘆 (@OneJoblessBoy) February 5, 2023
Author and music critic, Saratu Abiola, is ecstatic about Tems’ accomplishments. She tells The Africa Report: “This award is superb for a number of causes, comparable to the truth that she’s launched solely two EPs, is [a] comparatively new artist nonetheless, and doesn’t also have a full-length album but; however for me, what’s actually outstanding about Tems’ win is that she did it by being herself.
She didn’t come out making music for the golf equipment, and even courting main mainstream collaborations. She was very a lot a part of the choice crowd earlier than Wizkid introduced her on for a collaboration on ‘Essence’. After placing her indelible stamp on that hit, her story has been one among taking the present when it serves. You may see somebody who is aware of a great alternative and at all times appears to rise to the event. I can’t wait to see what she does from right here.”
…the naysayers
Expectedly there are naysayers on social media. To them, Tems’ accomplishments appear blown out of proportion. A number of tweets have debunked the declare that Tems is the “first Nigerian female musician” to clinch a Grammy award. Some have argued that Nigerian-born British singer and lead singer of her eponymous band, Sade, who acquired the Greatest New Artist award in 1986, holds the coveted first place. Others have submitted that Yemi Alade featured on Angelique Kidjo’s Grammy-winning album Mom Nature, earned a “Grammys Award by association” final 12 months.
Whatever the polarising responses to awards, particularly amongst followers invested in petty rivalry and mischief, Tems’ Grammy win final weekend is a spell of excellent issues to return for feminine musicians within the Nigerian music scene. For the reason that 60s, usually dubbed the Golden Period of music in West Africa, girls have been underserved, undermined and underrepresented within the artistic area, significantly in present enterprise.
Fortunately, Tems’ swift rise is neither an remoted occasion nor a flash within the pan. She leads a cohort of recent girls singers, together with Ayra Starr, Amaarae, Fave, and Guchi, poised for the worldwide stage and smashing the established order on their phrases.
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