Deborah Akinyosoye
Grammy-winning singer Temilade Openeyi, popularly known as Tems, has released visuals for “Raindance”, a collaboration with British rapper Dave.
The Nigerian singer, made the announcement on Instagram on Friday. Released from Dave’s latest album, The Boy Who Played the Harp, the “Raindance” has become a hit track.
Filmed in Lagos, Nigeria, this isn’t just the regular music video viewers are used to, it captures the cinematic nature of the city and the undeniable chemistry displayed between the two superstars. The video captures Dave’s sharp, powerful lyricism paired with Tems’ beautiful vocals.
Raindance is already peaking at Number 3 on the UK Singles Chart and surpassing 100 million streams on Spotify this week.
From Mr Rebel to Try Me, from the For Broken Ears EP to If Orange Was a Place, she’s built a discography that refuses to be caged.
Since then, her voice has travelled the world on tracks with Wizkid (Essence), Drake (Fountains), Future (Wait for U), and Beyoncé (Move).
She’s performed at Coachella, sold out shows across continents, and taken home two GRAMMYs, the first Nigerian woman to do so.
Before this level of fame, Tems worked as a digital marketer. She resigned from the job in January 2018 because she wanted to pursue music full-time.
That decision shaped everything that followed.
Her major breakthrough arrived in 2020 when she featured on Wizkid’s track Essence. The song quickly became a worldwide anthem and later climbed to number nine on the Billboard Hot 100 after Canadian singer Justin Bieber joined the remix.
The global success of Essence turned Tems into an international star and opened the door for collaborations, endorsements, Grammy nominations and her eventual Grammy wins.
For true fans, the “Raindance” video is more than just a new upload it’s a testament to Tems’ status as a global star.
By bringing Dave to the streets of Lagos for the shoot, she continues to bridge the gap between the UK rap scene and the African continent.
Recall from earlier report during the Leading Vibe Initiative (LVI) founded by Tems, how she had moments of self-doubt, of being underestimated, of fighting to keep her sound in an industry that tried to mould it into something safer.
She said, “I don’t want that to happen to women in Africa,” explaining that her mission was to make the path less exploitative for the next generation. She means the long road she had to walk: self-teaching production, funding her own recordings, learning the business without a mentor. She believes her story exists so that others won’t have to start in the dark.