Genre:Pop
What do you do when you’re a young up and coming singer and no genre that you know of accurately befits your expression. If you’re Temi Dollface, you fashion one for yourself. “Drama Soul”, as she calls it, is a sound as much as it is a look. It mashes up cultures across continents, and marries eras in flamboyant ceremony. Temitope Samantha Phil-Ebosie is used to making her own way when there isn’t one clearly visible.
Growing up in Nigeria as an only child with her mother – a Jamaican/Nigerian fine artist and interior designer turned Pastor – any music that wasn’t gospel was a no-no. But there was no stopping the little girl who wrote her first song at the age of seven, from indulging her forbidden secular pleasure at a maternal cousin's house during after school listening sessions. There she pored over everything from Sam Cooke to Janet Jackson, and New Edition to Maxi Priest.Temi’s father too, played an influential role she remembers, “On the last Saturday of every month when my dad would pick me up to spend the day with him I got to know him as an avid music lover, and always having all the latest music. For instance, he had the Notorious B.I.G's Life after Death and Timbaland and Magoo albums before I'd even heard of them.”Self-taught keyboardist that she is, Temi’s strong DIY streak started from an early age and shows up in the details of her career as an adult. Her stage costumes, for example, she styles herself, a habit she developed from years of convincing her grandmother to make dress-up outfits to wear for fantasy stage performances
Between this grandmother, her mom and her aunt’s closets, Temi also enjoys a bountiful treasure trove of vintage clothing, which informs her distinct retro fashion choices, and have made her a frequent fixture in leading style and music tastemaker publications including British GQ, Afropunk, Soul Bounce and MTV Iggy.It was in relocating to the UK for tertiary education that Temi began to consider a career in music again, despite where her academic path appeared to lead: “I got my A levels in Biology, Chemistry and Math because for some bizarre reason, I left Nigeria thinking I should be a dentist or chemical engineer when my heart actually belonged to music, art and English,” she explains. Eventually settling on and completing a degree in Food Science and Nutrition, Temi’s life and career lessons began here in earnest as she dived straight into open mic circuits across Guildford and London to sharpen her songwriting and performance skills. Chris Brown, Mary J Blige, Mos Def and neo-soul artist Rahsaan are just a couple of the notable acts she opened for.A former manager of hers facilitated a three-song audition for a room full of Sony ATV execs. A standing ovation and a few handshakes later, Temi scored a recording and publishing deal – a victory on paper, but both were severed after a year-long battle, freeing her up to test her wings independently.Returning to Nigeria one Christmas break in 2010 slowly began to lay down the roots there, encouraged by new possibilities– opening for Mary J Blige, being billed on the infamous Felabration franchise and taking part in pan African Kenyan live music TV program Coke Studio. By the following January (2012), Temi made the move permanent.Soon after came the release of her emblematic official debut video nominated four times at the All Africa Music Awards. Awash with Azonto dance moves, dry humour, pidgin-captioned informercials and 50s pin-up style references, it immediately set her apart as one of the most inventive African urban artists out there right now. The bar remains pitched high in follow up single Just like That (Story), a finely honed Hip Hop-Come-AfroBeat-Come-Ariaria assault in which she shows that she's equally as at home rapping, as she is scatting, and hitting notes that peak as high as they swoop low.