The other day a Tems song came on my Spotify, and I ended up down a rabbit hole reading about her career.
If you don't know her: Tems is a Nigerian singer who, in about four years, went from a marketing job she hated in Lagos to a Grammy and collabs with Rihanna and Drake. No industry contacts, no label at the start. She taught herself to produce beats on YouTube and released her first song six months after quitting her job.
Stories like this usually get filed under "talent plus luck." But the more I read about her, the more her rise looked like a system — and a few parts of it transfer directly to normal careers.
Her first release was, by her own account, not her best work
Tems said her first single, "Mr Rebel," was "the worst song on my laptop that I could release comfortably." She picked it precisely because she wasn't precious about it. After years of having nothing public, she just wanted something out.
That "not great" song is what broke her out. She announced it on Instagram, it spread by word of mouth, and then radio stations messaged her.
This is the shape of most great careers, by the way: they’re not linear. Flat for a long stretch, then a jump - and the jump usually happens because one specific person ran into your work at the right moment. You can't schedule that moment; it’s a bit “lucky”. What you control is how much of your work is out where a jump - or “luck” - can find it.
Most people keep their best work invisible without realizing it. Say you spend two weeks on a genuinely good analysis, send it to the one manager who asked for it, and it dies in their inbox. Nobody else ever knows it exists. That's a laptop demo.
So here's the habit I'd steal from her: regularly put finished work in front of people who didn't ask for it. When you finish something you're proud of, share it beyond the person who asked — the wider team, or online if it's a personal project. Someone you've never met sees it and thinks: we could use this person. That's a career conversation you could never have planned.
And you don't need to make your first public thing your masterpiece. The point is getting into the habit of putting out things that create “luck” for you.
The quit was a transfer, not a leap
The quitting part of her story gets told as “she took a leap of faith.” But look at the timeline.
Tems had been singing and writing since she was a kid - well over a decade of building that skill by the time she quit. The marketing job was a few months old. So the quit was really a transfer: out of her newest, weakest skill, and all-in on the most developed one she had.
Most people dreaming about quitting have it the other way around — they want to leave a job they've done for years to chase something they've barely started.
If that's you, the fix is not more courage, it's order: you don't quit to start building the skill. You build the skill on the side, for as long as it takes, and quit only when it's your strongest. Do it in that order and the quit stops being a leap at all.
A test worth running before any big switch: is the thing you're moving toward your most-practiced skill, or your most-fantasized one?
The thing she was mocked for became her signature
As a kid, Tems was teased for her deep voice — "you sound like a boy." That voice is now why you can identify her within three seconds of any song.
In a market full of technically great singers, the mocked thing became the signature. Nothing else sounds like it. In careers, work spreads because it's recognizable. You might follow your favorite podcaster because they have a recognizable vibe to them that you like - even though you could get the same information elsewhere.
Interestingly, the recognizable part of you is usually the part you've been told to sand off. Usually so you’d fit the norm.
I’ve been told to “lose the humor and be more serious” when writing about careers. Or to “not dabble in things outside of my lane”. But those are exactly the things that make people enjoy my essays - they’re different to what you can get elsewhere. I lean into the humor. I try to pull out-of-lane stories from stand-up comedy, tennis, or music.
Some criticism points at a real flaw - fix those. But take the criticism you've heard more than twice — too blunt, too cautious, too deep in the details — and instead of asking "how do I fix this," ask "where would this be useful?"
Not sure what your recognizable thing even is? This elevator pitch tool is built for this — it reads your LinkedIn, finds what makes your story stand out from everyone else with your title, and tells you what to lead with.
It’s free (for now, not forever!).
One more thing, since it's 2026
Tems teaching herself production from YouTube was impressive in 2018. Today, with AI, anyone can get competent at almost anything in a fraction of the time.
Getting known hasn't sped up at all, though. Her first song got her found — a manager, some radio play. Getting known took layers: two more years of regular releases before "Essence" made her global, four years before the Grammy.
You can compress learning; you can't compress being known. Trust and a track record grow slowly. Start early.
So the "miracle" was mostly machinery. She bet on the skill she'd spent fifteen years building, and she kept putting the results out in public — in a voice nobody could mistake for anyone else's — until the right person found one. None of that needed a record deal!
