Singer Tems reveals to Kendrick Lamar the artist who inspired her music journey

In a heart-to-heart interview session with Kendrick Lamar, the singer opened up on who her major music inspiration had been from an early age.

Grammy award-winning Nigerian singer Tems, in an interview session with popular American rapper Kendrick Lamar, opened up on the artist who inspired her to do music from a young age.

The singer revealed that from an early age, she had always loved listening to the radio, and an artist that caught her ears at that point was the multiple award-winning singer Celine Dion.

She said, “I was an extreme introvert when I was younger. I didn’t really talk much. My mom’s friends would be like, “Yo, Temi, come take a picture,” and I’d just turn around. 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. 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. “