She got dropped right into the deep end.
A deep end filled with some of the best female vocals on the African continent. Name them, Waje, Omawunmi, Tiwa, Niniola, Simi, Di’Ja. The list is beautifully endless!
I have had “Jabole”, her initiation rite, on repeat all evening. Not because it is flames, far from it. I just want to give her a chance to convince me that she has what it takes to survive in this clime. It is not just enough to be the diadem on the already very successful dynasty that Olamide has created. She has to prove herself just the way Lil Kesh managed to.
Temmie’s arrival at YBNL reminds me of when Di’ja got unveiled by the Mavins. Her first single got me wondering if Don Jazzy thought this was a joke. But Di’ja never looked back from there until she buried her flag deep into the hilltop of the brutally competitive Nigerian music ecosystem.
Is Temmie that tough? Does she have that “something different” that will catch and keep our interest? “Jabole” does not answer these questions for me. The song tries so hard to sell her vocal ability, but what I hear is not anywhere as good as what I am currently enjoying. It sounds like an engine that is revving, waiting for the asphalt to heat up so it can leave skid marks on it. Maybe Temmie has decided to go the way of “ka tibi pelebe mu ole je”, meaning we begin to consume the moimoi from the slender end.
The lyrics to “Jabole” don’t help. They seem like something that was hurriedly sewn together with liquid thread from an ageing spider. It barely managed to make it to the end. It could have been better.
I sense promise though.
The instrumental was good, sounded like her handlers were intent on delivering her to us on the back of music made from instruments that remind you of plots inside Jimoh Aliu’s “Arelu” in the olden days, laced with a bit of the kind of sounds that will make Asa’s vocal chords tingle in expectation.
If she can overcome the initial butterflies, and the inevitable artistic nudge here and there by the ogas at YBNL, as they tinker with the task of positioning her as Nigeria’s next voice of velvet, she might just shock us and add positively to our growing bevy of songstresses. Some of the best in Africa. I repeat.
She has the chance to do something that Simi has failed to do – a duet with the mercurial Adekunle Gold, her label mate. This will drop her right in the hearts and minds of the fans. I keep saying it, a collaboration of that kind will tear up the charts. But that might just be me dreaming. I don’t need a soothsayer to tell me an Olamide feature is only weeks away.
Will Olamide manage to do with her what he has done with Kesh? Will he take it notches higher and unleash her upon Nigeria in a way we did not think possible? The YBNL boss is a genius in his own rights, so her next single might give us a window into that. But until then, I do not think she is the “olohun iyo” that the prophets told us about. I continue to wait for that one. It might eventually just be a Temmie currently in disguise.