Tems

CTL-E-5732 · Person · musician · 1995–present

STRONG EVIDENCE evidence grade — master store (canonical CSV)

VERIFIED evidence grade — build store (JSON graph)

Combined Graph record U-01212 · provenance: canonical master store (CSV), record CTL-P-0193 + build store (JSON graph), record CTL-E-5732. Master record source: CTL seed 2026-10-16 — UNVERIFIED, verify before public citation.

Tems, born Temilade Openiyi on 11 June 1995 in Lagos, Nigeria, is a Nigerian singer and songwriter whose family moved to the United Kingdom in her infancy and returned to Nigeria when she was five. She left a digital-marketing job in 2018 and self-produced her debut single "Mr Rebel"; the breakout "Try Me" (2019) and the EP For Broken Ears (2020) followed, and she signed with Since '93/RCA for If Orange Was a Place (2021). Her feature on Wizkid's "Essence" (2020) and Drake's "Fountains" (2021) carried her global, and she co-wrote Rihanna's "Lift Me Up" (2022). Sampling her song "Higher," Future's "Wait for U" with Drake debuted at No. 1 on the Hot 100. She has won two Grammy Awards from eight nominations — Best Melodic Rap Performance (2023) and Best African Music Performance (2025) — and released her debut album Born in the Wild in 2024.

The record

• Also known as: Temilade Openiyi
• Role(s): musician

Notes

Staged 2026-10-16 under CTL-GOV-006 (Census Intake Wave 1 — 747 Program, Wave 7; first packet at the founder's 40-record size). Gate A (2026-10-16): no Tems entity in the live graph at 3,443 entities (exact / normalized / alias + token containment); ID CTL-E-5732 free. Supply: 747 Supply Ledger, Tier 3 — Famous Birthdays ABSENT census, readiness rank 205 (R&B Singers list). The census supplied the NAME ONLY; no fact in this record is sourced to it (CTL-GOV-004). SCOPE GATE: PASS — Nigerian R&B/Afrobeats figure — diaspora scope. Vital status: LIVING — won Best African Music Performance at the 67th Grammys, 2 February 2025; surprise EP Love Is a Kingdom released 21 November 2025. CONFLICTS CARRIED: The popular "first Nigerian female Grammy winner" framing is contested: Sade Adu, British-Nigerian, won a Grammy in 1986 (Black Enterprise reports the objection). This record carries Tems' wins without asserting the unqualified first. STATISTICS (sourced, dated): Two Grammy wins from eight nominations: Best Melodic Rap Performance (2023, "Wait for U") and Best African Music Performance (2025, "Love Me JeJe") — Wikipedia/Arbiterz, accessed 2026-10-16. MEDIA: photo HELD (candidate: Wikimedia Commons and label/press photography of this subject exists; no file page was read at file-page level in this pass, so no image is cleared — CTL-PHOTO-001; a CTL-created graphic is the standing alternative); chart FILLED (charts/chart-ctl-e-5732-tems.svg); video HELD (the Shorts Link Map catalog was checked by name and variants — no matching-entity CTL Short exists for this subject; the three catalog string-hits for "Ne-Yo" resolve to Nina Simone and John Coltrane rows, not Ne-Yo billings); audio HELD (no CTL-owned or rights-cleared matching-entity audio; the subject's recordings are third-party copyrighted material). MEDIA LAYER (staged 2026-10-16; full per-asset PHOTO-001 records + embed specs in the packet's staged JSON, Drive packet folder): map = N/A (Person records carry no map slot under the media-layer rule; maps attach to places and institutions.) | visual_assets = HELD: | chart = FILLED (CTL-created SVG (black / deep red / gold) built only from this record's sourced facts) | video = HELD (No matching-entity CTL Short in the Shorts Link Map catalog (checked by name and variants), and no official/em) | audio = HELD (No CTL-owned or rights-cleared matching-entity audio at staging; the subject's own recordings are third-party )

Relationships

• Drake — collaborated with
  Tems is featured on Drake's "Fountains" (2021).
• Soul Train Music Awards 2022 — honored by
  STRONG EVIDENCE

Referenced by

• Wizkid — collaborated with → this record

Sources

• Wikipedia, "Tems (singer)" — born Temilade Openiyi, 11 June 1995, Lagos; "Essence"/"Fountains" features; "Wait for U" No. 1 debut; two Grammy wins; Born in the Wild (2024) — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tems_(singer) (build store)
• Arbiterz, Grammy report (2 February 2025) — second Grammy win, Best African Music Performance; eight career nominations — https://arbiterz.com/tems-wins-best-african-music-performance-at-2025-grammy-awards/ (primary source · build store)
• Black Enterprise — reports her first Grammy win and the Sade Adu contestation of the "first Nigerian female winner" framing — https://www.blackenterprise.com/tems-deemed-as-first-nigerian-female-to-win-a-grammy/ (build store)
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Soul_Train_Music_Awards (verification source · master store)

Evidence note (master store)

Won Best New Artist at the Soul Train Music Awards 2022 — per the published Soul Train Music Awards winners lists (per-year lists fetched in full during recovery Phase C, 2026-10-17)

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Record CTL-E-5732 · Combined Graph record U-01212 · CultureTechLens Knowledge Graph · 4 sources · 3 mapped relationships.
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Researched and maintained by the CultureTechLens research program · CultureTechLens Combined Graph, Release 2026-11-04. Corrections are public: the corrections log.

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