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Tems performs during the 2025 Dreamville Music Festival
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Key Takeaways:
- Love Is A Kingdom blends stripped-down production with Tems’ signature falsetto to create an intimate listening experience.
- The EP arrives with no features, letting her vocals and storytelling take center stage.
- Songs like “Lagos Love” reflect personal experiences rooted in her Nigerian identity.
Being a global superstar doesn’t shield you from wanting to feel seen, loved and understood — something Tems knows well. On Friday (Nov. 21), the “Burning” singer surprised fans with the release of Love Is A Kingdom.
Across its seven tracks, Tems sits in the complicated middle ground of love, especially on songs like “Mine” and “What You Need.” On the opener, “First,” the Afrobeats star sings about “moving different” after being let down too many times. “I know they watching, they still checking about me / And yet, I know that without God, I’m nobody / Eternity is real, that’s the way I feel,” she croons.
“Big Daddy,” which came with a visualizer directed by Jyde Ajala, finds Tems singing about a man who loves being called “big daddy” even though he wasn’t there when she needed him most. The following track, “Lagos Love,” sees her pouring her heart into a story about romance in her hometown of Lagos.
Love Is A Kingdom notably arrived feature-free, which makes sense given its emotional depth and the way Tems’ airy falsetto holds down most of the instrumentals. Listen to the EP below.
Love Is A Kingdom marked Tems’ first full-length release since 2024’s Born in the Wild. The 18-song album included collaborations with J. Cole and Asake, as well as fan favorites like “Love Me JeJe,” “Wickedest” and “Ready.”
“Born in the Wild is a story of transformation from a cocoon to a butterfly. It speaks on surviving mental wilderness and coming to a place where one can thrive,” Tems said of the album. “It’s about finally accepting oneself and embodying the woman I was born to be. It shows the different dimensions of who I am — from a cub to a lioness.”
As Rap-Up reported on Monday (Nov. 17), Tems will be performing at the inaugural HBCU Aware Fest in March 2026. Billed as the “biggest HBCU fundraiser ever,” other artists on the lineup include GloRilla, Metro Boomin, Coco Jones and Jeezy.