Talented Nigerian singer Temilade Openiyi generally known in music circles as Tems has explained why she chose to dump the popular Afrobeats genre for R&B (Rhythm & Blues).
Tems who shared her reason for making the decision in a chat with American rapper, Kendrick Lamar, published in the latest volume of Interview Magazine said she was prepared for the worst after she made her decision to shelve Afrobeats for R&B.
She stated that believes in herself so much that she doesn’t really care if she never became anything.
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Tems said; “I was prepared to die. I believed in myself so much that I didn’t really care if I never became anything or anyone. I just wanted to get a message out. I wanted to get my frequency out. And I was like, ‘Even if ten people hear this, it’s fine.’
‘‘But also along the way, I used to listen to a lot of Nigerian music and I wasn’t getting a lot of spiritual—I love Celine Dion, so, I love that intense feeling of, I’m about to jump off a cliff. That’s how I want my music to feel all the time, and Afrobeats wasn’t necessarily giving me that type of stimulation.”
She also talked about how everyone she asked for advice back then, urged her to do Afrobeats, saying; “The only way you can do this is Afrobeats. It’s not that your music is bad, it’s just that it doesn’t fit in Nigeria. Nigerians don’t like this.”
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