Well SXSW London has been something of a hit, with everyone from Idris Elba to The King turning up to participate in a festival which has set new levels of multidisciplinary cross-pollination. Shoreditch has been a place where you can drift from a talk about VR set design on film sets at Rich Mix into the Old Blue Last where punk bands are rolling around on the floor.
On the music side of things, the programming has taken pains to concentrate on electronica, Caribbean and R&B, which has given it lovely diverse and youthful approach which feels very London 2025. What the line-up lacked though, was a big star... until Tems took to the stage at The Troxy last night.
While Beyoncé was across town at the Tottenham Stadium in a huge spectacular, here Tems strutted like a superstar but always remained in touching distance of the fans who sang every word back at her and screamed at her every slow turn.
Tems has established herself as one of the leading lights of the Afrobeat scene, a Grammy-award winner, Nigeria’s biggest export, yet for all the obvious charisma she possesses, it’s the songs that dominate here.
Me & U is crafted by the band into something so soulful it seems to physically fill the venue. The amount of phone footage combined would no doubt equal around 430 hours of recordings. Free Mind and Higher from last year’s Born in the Wild album showcased that honeyed vocal style that is impossible to resist falling for. She takes the time to promise a new album is on the way, which would mean two albums in two years, not bad for someone who was notorious for not having an album for quite some time. But you get the sense with Tems, with all her self-possession and ownership of her space, that she’ll do things in her own time, when she feels like it, and that’s just the way it is.
There’s no encore, she’s said all she needed to say tonight, and it was a rare kind of rapture.
Like I said, she’s a superstar, and as the albums start coming thick and fast, it’s surely stadiums next.
