Tems has spent the previous 12 months transferring like a storm you’ll be able to’t outrun. Following her flawless 2024 debut album ‘Born within the Wild’, she’s solidified her place in R&B as a refreshing whirlwind – the sort of artist who sweeps up the charts, sells out a world tour, and collects a Grammy with ease. With acclaim like that, most artists would lean again, take the victory lap, soften into the shadows whereas chiselling album two.
However Tems doesn’t pivot the apparent manner. As a substitute, she turns inwards and gives up ‘Love Is A Kingdom’ – a shock EP recorded in the identical London studio the place her debut got here to life. Throughout these seven songs, she traces love in all its types: self-love, suspicious love, inherited love, non secular love, the sort you cling to and the sort you run from. And with Tems producing the vast majority of it herself, the EP turns into her compass – a approach to minimize by fame’s noise and keep tethered to what really issues.
The 30-year-old asserts her self-worth with a confidence that threads by the EP, explored each personally and communally. On the brilliant, buoyant self-love anthem ‘First’, she chants with steely willpower that she comes “Fir-first, fir-first”. Then comes ‘Huge Daddy’, the place Tems shifts from softness to pointed readability, calling out the vulturistic figures circling her fame. Over a uneven, melodious bassline, she lands one of many EP’s sharpest blows: “Are you excessive on a mountain to be calling me? / Ooh, chances are you’ll seem like you’re respiratory, however you’re lifeless to me.”
However Tems explores love in its most standard kind, too. On ‘I’m Not Positive’, she lets romantic uncertainty spill out in tender waves, her voice feather-light as she units boundaries with care: “Be on time, time, time, if you happen to’re mine, mine, mine / I’ll be all yours if you happen to’re price it.” Later, the dancefloor-ready ‘Mine’ flips the power fully: explosive 808s, plosive log drums, and crisp percussion propel her voice like a spell over the groove. The observe is flirtatious and forward-looking, a musical name to the longer term she desires, all whereas retaining the company and grounding that outline her work.
‘Is There A Motive?’ stands aside on ‘Love Is A Kingdom’, however maybe emerges as its most daring second. Right here, Tems enters uncharted territory, stepping outdoors her regular first-person lens to relay her private divine dialog. Sparse keys and comfortable synths cradle the emotive refrain, the place she questions why God’s blessed her a lot (“Is there a cause? / Why do you’re keen on me like this?”), turning prayer into music, and music into meditation. It’s vivid, non secular, and deeply human – a end result of the EP’s exploration of affection’s many dimensions.
On ‘Love Is A Kingdom’, Tems dives into the softest corners of herself, exhibiting what love actually is – tender, difficult, unwavering – and the way it has at all times been her anchor and guiding compass. By the point the ultimate notes fade, the EP is a masterclass in recalibration: much less about applause, extra about intention, readability, and grounding, and a reminder that probably the most potent love is the one you domesticate first for your self.
Particulars
- File label: Since ‘93/RCA
- Launch date: November 21, 2025
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