Tems has spent the past year moving like a storm you can’t outrun. Following her flawless 2024 debut album ‘Born in the Wild’, she’s solidified her place in R&B as a refreshing whirlwind – the kind 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 back, take the victory lap, melt into the shadows while chiselling album two.
But Tems doesn’t pivot the obvious way. Instead, she turns inwards and offers up ‘Love Is A Kingdom’ – a surprise EP recorded in the same London studio where her debut came to life. Across these seven songs, she traces love in all its forms: self-love, suspicious love, inherited love, spiritual love, the kind you cling to and the kind you run from. And with Tems producing the majority of it herself, the EP becomes her compass – a way to cut through fame’s noise and stay tethered to what actually matters.
The 30-year-old asserts her self-worth with a confidence that threads through the EP, explored both personally and communally. On the bright, buoyant self-love anthem ‘First’, she chants with steely determination that she comes “Fir-first, fir-first”. Then comes ‘Big Daddy’, where Tems shifts from softness to pointed clarity, calling out the vulturistic figures circling her fame. Over a choppy, melodious bassline, she lands one of the EP’s sharpest blows: “Are you high on a mountain to be calling me? / Ooh, you may look like you’re breathing, but you’re dead to me.”
But Tems explores love in its most conventional form, too. On ‘I’m Not Sure’, she lets romantic uncertainty spill out in tender waves, her voice feather-light as she sets boundaries with care: “Be on time, time, time, if you’re mine, mine, mine / I’ll be all yours if you’re worth it.” Later, the dancefloor-ready ‘Mine’ flips the energy completely: explosive 808s, plosive log drums, and crisp percussion propel her voice like a spell over the groove. The track is flirtatious and forward-looking, a musical call to the future she wants, all while retaining the agency and grounding that define her work.
‘Is There A Reason?’ stands apart on ‘Love Is A Kingdom’, but perhaps emerges as its most daring moment. Here, Tems enters uncharted territory, stepping outside her usual first-person lens to relay her personal divine conversation. Sparse keys and soft synths cradle the emotive chorus, where she questions why God’s blessed her so much (“Is there a reason? / Why do you love me like this?”), turning prayer into music, and music into meditation. It’s vivid, spiritual, and deeply human – a culmination of the EP’s exploration of love’s many dimensions.
On ‘Love Is A Kingdom’, Tems dives into the softest corners of herself, showing what love truly is – tender, complicated, unwavering – and how it has always been her anchor and guiding compass. By the time the final notes fade, the EP is a masterclass in recalibration: less about applause, more about intention, clarity, and grounding, and a reminder that the most potent love is the one you cultivate first for yourself.
Details
- Record label: Since ‘93/RCA
- Release date: November 21, 2025