Tems | Mike Coppola/Getty Images
Nigerian singer Tems has had a meteoric rise to success in recent years. Her debut EP For Broken Ears arrived in 2020 and a follow-up project If Orange Was a Place came the following year. She earned a Grammy nomination for “Essence,” her 2021 collab with fellow Nigerian artist Wizkid, and won her first Grammy for her 2022 Drake and Future collab “Wait For U.”
At her first-ever Coachella performance last week, Tems announced that her debut album Born in the Wild was done and on its way. She gave a first taste of what’s to come last year with the singles “Me & U” and “Not an Angel,” and now she’s back with the latest piece of the project.
“Love Me JeJe,” out now, is inspired by a beloved song of the same name released by Nigerian singer-songwriter Seyi Sodimu in 1997. She first previewed the track at her debut Coachella set last weekend, and Sodimu himself was thrilled about the honor. “This made my day,” he wrote on Instagram after the performance. “The beautiful thing about music is that it transcends generations and connects us through time.”
“Jeje” loosely means “gentle” or “softly” in Nigeria, and on the song, Tems shares the joy of being loved over a sunny guitar groove. “If not you, then I don’t wanna know, I don’t want no story / Day and night, it’s unconditional, got mе living softly / Love me JeJe, love me tender,” she sings.
When thinking about her next steps, Tems told Kendrick Lamar for Interview last year that she puts her whole self into her work. “I want to make music that makes me pull my heart out, and if I can’t do that, I don’t want anything,” she stated plainly.
As for her secret sauce, she explained to Billboard last month that she just does what feels natural. “When I make music, I don’t really think about where it’s going to end up,” she said. “I just leave it all in the studio.”
