Tems Tour 2026

Inside Tems

Tems is the Nigerian singer, songwriter, and producer who, more than any other Afrobeats-adjacent vocalist of her generation, has pulled the sound out of the regional pop conversation and into the upper rooms of global pop, R&B, and film music. The voice is the load-bearing element of the project — a deep, breathy alto closer to Sade or Erykah Badu than to the brighter Afro-pop vocal world she emerged out of, paired with phrasing that pulls equally from gospel, neo-soul, and the patient melodic instincts of long-form West African song.

The breakout was 'Essence' alongside Wizkid in 2020, the first Nigerian song to chart on the Billboard Hot 100 and the record that opened the US mainstream door for the Afrobeats wave that followed her. The Drake collaboration 'Fountains' on Certified Lover Boy in 2021 and the Future and Drake feature 'Wait For U' in 2022 — which won the Grammy for Best Melodic Rap Performance and became her first US number one as a featured artist — confirmed the pattern.

The Black Panther: Wakanda Forever Oscar-nominated single 'Lift Me Up' with Rihanna, co-written by Tems alongside Ryan Coogler and Ludwig Goransson, pulled her into a film-and-soundtrack conversation few peers operate inside; the Beyonce 'Cozy' co-write on Renaissance sealed the songwriting-credit profile. The Born In The Wild album in 2024, released through RCA, is the deliberate full statement — a long-form record built to be heard as an album rather than a stream of singles, with the world tour carrying the live show across North America, Europe, the UK, and a stretch of African and Australian dates.

This page is the working guide to who Tems is, what a Born In The Wild night actually feels like, how the ticketing tends to behave through the theatre-and-mid-cap arena tier she is currently anchoring on, and which cities keep coming up on the routing.

About Tems

Temilade Openiyi was born June 11, 1995 in Lagos, Nigeria, raised between Lagos and the United Kingdom in her early years, and returned to Lagos full-time as a teenager. The musical foundation was unusually broad for a Nigerian artist of her generation: church choir from childhood, classical piano lessons through her school years, and a Lagos adolescence absorbing the city's mix of gospel, R&B, Afro-pop, and the long shadow of Fela Kuti's Afrobeat.

She studied economics at Monash University South Africa in Johannesburg, returned to Lagos with a degree, took a marketing job at a multinational while writing songs in the evenings, and put out her first independent single 'Mr Rebel' in 2018. The early Lagos buzz built through 2019 around 'Try Me' — a self-produced track that turned into a slow-burn local hit and that established the vocal-and-production identity that would carry the rest of the career.

The 2020 Wizkid feature on 'Essence', released on his Made In Lagos album, was the cycle-defining moment. The song's slow rise through 2020 and 2021, capped by the Justin Bieber remix and the Hot 100 entry, opened the US Afrobeats conversation at a scale no previous Nigerian record had managed.

The 2020 EP For Broken Ears and the 2021 EP If Orange Was a Place followed the trajectory — short-form releases that read more like statements than full-length albums, with 'Damages', 'Found' (with Brent Faiyaz), and 'Crazy Tings' extending the catalogue. The Drake and Future feature 'Wait For U' in 2022 became her first US number one as a featured artist and won the Grammy for Best Melodic Rap Performance.

'Lift Me Up' with Rihanna later that year, co-written by Tems alongside Ryan Coogler and Ludwig Goransson, was nominated for the Academy Award and the Golden Globe for Best Original Song; the Beyonce 'Cozy' co-writing credit on Renaissance landed in the same window. Born In The Wild, released through RCA in June 2024, was her debut full-length studio album — a long-form record tracing gospel, alt-R&B, and Afro-fusion through a single artist's voice, with 'Love Me JeJe' (interpolating Seyi Sodimu's 1997 Nigerian classic), 'Burning', and 'Free Fall' as lead singles.

The world tour built out of the album cycle has run across North America, the UK, Europe, Africa, and Australia, with the venue tier sitting in the upper-end theatre and mid-cap arena range. She is signed to RCA Records globally and runs her own imprint, Leading Vibe Records, in parallel.

Tems tour dates

Tems currently tours at the upper-end theatre and mid-cap arena tier — rooms in the 3,000-to-12,000-capacity range that suit a vocal-led production better than the harder-cycle pop stages above 15,000 capacity. The Born In The Wild Tour pattern is single-night stops at marquee theatre rooms (Radio City Music Hall in New York, the Greek Theatre or YouTube Theater in Los Angeles, History or Massey Hall in Toronto, the Chicago Theatre or Aragon Ballroom, Eventim Apollo or OVO Wembley in London) with mid-cap arena upgrades in cities where demand has consistently overflowed the theatre tier.

A typical headline cycle runs a North American leg of four to six weeks, a UK and EU leg of three weeks, and a closing stretch through Lagos, Johannesburg, Cape Town, and the African festival circuit when the schedule lines up. The live set runs roughly 80 to 100 minutes including the encore — about 16 to 20 songs — with a single support act, usually a rising Afrobeats, alt-R&B, or West African artist pulled from the same management or Leading Vibe orbit.

The staging is deliberately less spectacle-driven than the pure pop circuit: a full live band (drums, bass, keys, two backing vocalists), occasional horn-section support on the bigger dates, and a lighting design that leans into the song's atmospheric range rather than pyro or video-wall theatre. Doors are typically 7 or 7:30 p.m., support opens around 8, and Tems is on stage between 9 and 9:30 depending on the building.

The live event listings above this block are the working calendar — filter by city or date to see which rooms are on sale right now.

Tems tickets

Born In The Wild Tour tickets are upper-theatre and mid-arena tickets, which means a tighter face-value spread than the pure-arena pop circuit and a secondary market that runs hot on the smaller buildings where capacity is genuinely limited. Expect a standard split: a general-admission floor or standing pit at the front of the stage (the most contested ticket on any onsale), reserved orchestra or lower-bowl seating with full sightlines onto the band, a reserved mezzanine or balcony tier, and the limited-view far-corner or upper-balcony inventory that lists at the lowest face value of the building.

Face value across the cycle has typically run from a rough US$55 to US$75 for upper-balcony or mezzanine reserved up to US$180 to US$350 for premium orchestra or lower-bowl, with VIP packages bundling early entry, premium seating, a tour-specific merch item, and a pre-show experience into the US$300 to US$700 band depending on tier. Dynamic pricing is less aggressive on the theatre tier than on the open-air arena circuit, but Ticketmaster's Platinum tier can still push lower-bowl tickets past sticker for the highest-demand dates — particularly New York, London, Toronto, and Lagos.

Onsale routes through Ticketmaster (and AXS for a handful of UK and US theatre rooms) on the official Tems mailing-list presale, then a wider artist presale window, then the public onsale. Secondary inventory on StubHub, SeatGeek, and Vivid Seats is live within minutes and runs at a meaningful premium on rooms where capacity is tightest.

Tems setlist

A Born In The Wild Tour set runs roughly 80 to 100 minutes and follows a slower-burn template than the pure pop circuit. The opener typically pulls from the Born In The Wild title track or 'Burning', establishing the band-led atmosphere before the vocal sits on top of the room.

The early-set block leans into the new album material — 'Burning', 'Wickedest', 'Love Me JeJe', and 'Boy O Boy' — with the longer-burn cuts and the ballad-tempo material placed in the front third. The mid-set drops into the catalogue: 'Damages', 'Crazy Tings', and 'Free Fall' tend to land here, with 'Found' (the Brent Faiyaz collaboration) frequently appearing as a solo reinterpretation.

The film and feature material — 'Lift Me Up' from Wakanda Forever, the 'Wait For U' Future and Drake feature, and the Wizkid 'Essence' chorus passage — usually sits in the back half of the set as the recognition climax of the night. 'Higher' often appears as the late-set lift before the encore.

The encore is typically one or two songs, with 'Free Mind' as the recurring closer — a song the audience consistently sings back loud enough to be audible through the PA. Exact running order shifts night to night and the band-led arrangement means certain songs open up into extended live reinterpretations not present on the recordings; setlist.fm tracks each show after the fact.

Tour cities