Tems opened up about her creative process, creating the howl sample in her track “Free Mind,” being inspired by other artists and more backstage at Billboard Women in Music 2024.

Tems:
Hi, I’m Tems, and here are five things you don’t know about my music.

No. 1 is almost all my music is freestyle. It’s all came from freestyles. It’s just me freestyling the whole way through.

No. 2 two is that I have cried while making some of the songs because they were very personal to me. I think maybe that was too personal, but yeah, it’s true.

My favorite city to perform … right now, I don’t have a favorite city to perform. I really want to perform in Paris. I think that might be life-changing.

So I have a song called “Free Mind.” And when I was making that song, there’s a sample in the beginning that it’s like it sounds like it howl. A lot of people don’t know that I sang it into my laptop. I didn’t have a mic when I made that song, so I put my laptop speaker to my mouth and I sang the song, the sample.

What inspires me most is the season I’m in in life, coupled with the music that I’ve heard, people that I love: Frank Ocean, Aṣa, Sade. Those are the people that inspire me and helped me in my process.

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