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Tems has traced her love for music to Celine Dion.
Speaking with Kendrick Lamar for a newly released feature in The Interview Magazine feature, she opened about discovering her love for music at an early age.
Crediting Dion, the Oscar-nominated singer said, "I’m not sure when the first time I heard music was, but I found myself loving the radio, and I used to hear Celine Dion. Nigerians love Celine Dion. Her songs are very emotional, jump-off-a-cliff-type songs. They entered my soul. I think that’s where my love for music started."
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Not long after falling in love with music, Tems took to songwriting before she became a teenager. She described the experience as something that quickly became an obession.
In her words, "And then, when I was nine or ten, I started writing songs, but it wasn’t songs with choruses, it was just verses of things I was feeling. Then I fell into this deep hole of music obsession, and it was the only thing that made me feel alive. I can’t describe the feeling when I first got my first CD. It was a Destiny’s Child CD that was fake, it had 30 songs, and I learned them all."
Since falling in love with music and songwriting, Tems has gone from being an unknown artist to becoming a global sensation with collaborations featuring artists like Drake and Beyonce. She has put out For Broken Ears and If Orange Was a Place EPs in 2020 and 2021, respectively, she is currently working on her debut album.