Nigerian singer and Grammy Award winner Tems has spoken about the genre of music she makes and explained why she does not identify her sound as Afrobeats.
During an interview on The Ebro Laura Rosenberg Show, the host asked Tems how she would describe her music. Many people refer to her as an Afrobeats singer and classify her songs under the genre.
She explained that she considers her music R&B, while describing her sound as a combination of different genres. 
Tems explains her sound
The singer said she did not approach music with a specific genre in mind when she started making music.
“My music is alternative, alte but in the world scope, in an objective view it’s alternative , Afro, R&B. It’s like a mesh up of different genres and I don’t know about genres. I was just making music so that’s why this is a bit weird.”
She also pointed out that people often classify music as Afrobeats simply because it comes from Nigeria or Africa.
According to the singer, Africa has several different musical genres, and she questioned whether Afrobeats should serve as a general label for music from the continent.
“I noticed that any music that comes out of Nigeria people just put it under Afrobeats because it’s Nigeria. Now, it’s Africa as the new name for African music seems to be Afrobeats and I don’t know that that’s right. Because it’s like there are so many genres but also I think they don’t really don’t know what to classify.”
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Tems says she uses R&B when releasing her music
Tems also explained that she personally classifies her music as R&B when she releases it.
“When I release my music I put R&B under the genre so it’s really the blogs and the whoever that says Afrobeats, it’s just the thing that’s going on right now”.
She said music blogs and other platforms largely determine how people classify her sound, rather than the genre she selects when she releases her music.
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Tems predicts a change in how people classify African music
The Love Me Jeje singer believes listeners will eventually recognise the differences between Afrobeats and other genres of music coming from Africa.
“People would soon start noticing that this is actually not Afrobeats and they will start differentiating the genres of music”.
She further made it clear that she does not see Afrobeats as the type of music she makes.
“Afrobeat is not the kind of music I make, and it doesn’t sound like Afrobeats”.
Tems’ comments highlight the different ways people classify African music, particularly Nigerian music, as the global audience continues to discover and embrace sounds from the continent.
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