By ANDR\u00c9-NAQUIAN WHEELER<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Breakout Nigerian artist Tems attended her very first Grammy Awards last night. The 27-year-old musician\u2014who, last year, worked with Beyonc\u00e9, Rihanna, Drake, and Future\u2014was up for multiple awards, including Best Melodic Rap Performance (for her collaboration with Future) and Album of the Year (through her featured appearance on Beyonc\u00e9\u2019s Renaissance<\/em>). \u201cI\u2019ve never been in the same place with so many artists in one space before,\u201d Tems says, speaking to Vogue<\/em> on Monday morning, from her hotel room. \u201cPeople coming together to celebrate work and art.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Tems hails from Lagos, Nigeria, but she says the American music ceremony carried poignant significance throughout her childhood in the country. \u201cBack in the day, the Grammys were definitely an event,\u201d Tems says. So attending the ceremony was a full-circle moment. For the personal milestone, the artist opted to wear a gold gown, designed by British label Vivienne Westwood, that incorporated a va-va-voom silhouette, a corset, and criss-crossing pearl necklaces and straps. Tems, whose full name is Temilade Openiyi, calls the look the perfect mix of \u201csoft, but sultry.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n She says she was particularly drawn to wearing a Vivienne Westwood design in light of the label\u2019s namesake and founder\u2019s recent death at 81. \u201cThere were other options \u2014 but I just thought it was so special,\u201d Tems says of the dress, which was completed two weeks before last night\u2019s ceremony. \u201cI really wanted to wear Vivienne.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n According to Tems, the look neatly aligns with her penchant for duality. \u201cI feel like I\u2019m feminine. But I think everyone has some<\/em> type of ratio of feminine and masculine energy,\u201d she says. \u201cMine just switches out sometimes. Sometimes I\u2019m more feminine, sometimes I\u2019m more masculine. I like to express that in what I wear.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Inside the star-studded ceremony, Tems nabbed her first Grammy during the pre-televised segment. A cherry on top: meeting a personal idol. \u201cI met Mary J. Blige,\u201d Tems says, awe filling her voice. \u201cI used to listen to her when I was 13 or 12 like\u2026 a lot.\u201d She takes a moment to consider what her former-self might think of the meaningful run-in. \u201cI come from Lagos and, at that time, there was no way I thought I would ever meet her. That was very cool.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Tems is fast becoming a continent-spanning star in her own right. She is from the lush cultural capital of Lagos, Nigeria, which has become an incubator of exciting, fresh-sounding afrobeats stars like Wizkid and Davido. In 2020, from Lagos, she released her debut EP For Broken Ear<\/em>s\u2014 which spawned the hit single \u201cFree Mind.\u201d Three years later, Tems has a serious chance of nabbing the Academy Award for \u201cBest Original Song\u201d as a songwriter on Rihanna\u2019s Black Panther: Wakanda Forever<\/em> anthem \u201cLift Me Up.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI love Rihanna, obviously,\u201d Tems says of working with the Barbadian pop star. \u201cI feel like every girl that grew up from the 2000s definitely loves Rihanna.\u201d Tems expresses astonishment at the singer performing a song she co-wrote \u201c80-90 percent of.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Still, after all her successful and celebrated work with other artists, Tems is ready to show an unaccompanied view of herself. She says even the song \u201cFree Mind,\u201d which is still receiving heavy radioplay and streams three years after its release, does not represent who she is anymore. \u201cI really wrote that song in 2018,\u201d she says. \u201cFrom the time I wrote that song to now, so much has changed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n She unpacks her state of mind at the time, saying, \u201cI had just quit my job.\u201d (She declines to provide further details.) \u201cI was at home a lot. I had no idea that I was even going to release new music. That time was one of the most emotional times of my life. Especially because I didn\u2019t know what was going to become of me. Working everyday, trying to find some place in the world, what you\u2019re meant to be doing. \u201cFree Mind\u201d is really just an expression of how I felt at that time.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Things are different now. According to Tems, her lyricism has shifted away from heady anxieties and more towards confidence and self-assuredness. Some of the songs \u201creally encapsulate getting to a point where you don\u2019t care about what people have to say anymore,\u201d she says. \u201cJust being comfortable with who you are as a person and knowing you\u2019re more than enough. Being bold.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Originally published at Vogue<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By ANDR\u00c9-NAQUIAN WHEELER Breakout Nigerian artist Tems attended her very first Grammy Awards last night. The 27-year-old musician\u2014who, last year, worked with Beyonc\u00e9, Rihanna, Drake, and Future\u2014was up for multiple awards, including Best Melodic Rap…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8018,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[77,1432],"class_list":["post-8017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment-art-culture","tag-grammys","tag-tems"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\n