One of the UK’s recent No. 1 singles started as a 30-minute voice memo. Tems revealed in her EE72 cover interview that “Raindance,” her collaboration with Dave, came from a freestyle she recorded on her phone, with the team piecing the finished song together from that one session.
That loose, instinctive way of working shows up in what she’s saying about her next move too. Tems used the same interview to give fans a first real sense of her second album, the follow-up to 2024’s Born in the Wild.
“It’s definitely more R&B leaning. It’s more melancholic,” she said. “It’s like a river, it’s very smooth. It’s very mellow, lo-fi.”
She didn’t share a title or a release date, so for now that description is all anyone has to go on. Still, it points to a quieter record than the debut, which spread itself across 18 tracks and a wide mix of sounds.
On that album, “You in My Face” pulled from R&B and soul, “T-Unit” leaned into rap, and J. Cole showed up on the P2J-produced “Free Fall.” A tighter, moodier lane could land two ways, with some fans welcoming a focused sound and others missing that range.
Tems has already pushed back on the idea that any single genre should box her in. Every artist has the power and ability to define themselves,” she told the Recording Academy around the debut’s release. “Every artist is in charge of how they view themselves.”
The “Raindance” approach clearly works for her. The track hit No. 1 on the UK’s Official Singles Chart in January and held the top spot for two weeks, quite a result for something that began as an off-the-cuff phone recording.
She explained that she builds songs without writing lyrics down on paper, which helps explain how a freestyle could become a chart topper. Not every idea moves that fast, though.
Tems said she wrote “What You Need” seven years ago while going through a breakup. The song finally surfaced on Love Is a Kingdom, the seven-track EP she released in November 2025 through RCA Records and Since ’93.
That EP was close to a solo effort, with Tems handling nearly all of the writing, composition and production herself. Its songs circled love, self-worth and faith, giving fans a between-albums project that felt almost entirely her own.
That hands-on control goes back years. In college she struggled to find producers willing to help make the music she wanted, so she taught herself through online tutorials and Logic, recording in her dorm room before putting out “Mr Rebel” in 2018.
How much of that self-made, lo-fi spirit carries into the new record is still an open question. With no title or date on the table yet, fans have one image to hold onto: a smooth, mellow river that’s still finding its course.
