Five years after it quietly reshaped what Nigerian music could sound like, For Broken Ears keeps racking up numbers that make the argument for itself.
Tems’ debut EP has now crossed 800 million streams on Spotify, becoming the 12th Nigerian project to surpass the milestone on the platform and her second, following her debut album Born in the Wild, which crossed 600 million streams in September 2025.
Released on September 25, 2020, For Broken Ears is a seven-track project spanning just over 20 minutes, yet its reach has been anything but small. Tems served as the sole songwriter and lead producer on the EP, drawing from American, African, and Caribbean influences to craft a sound rooted in her personal experiences of heartbreak and the pursuit of emotional freedom. No features. No co-writes. Just Tems, doing exactly what she wanted, on her own terms.
Tracks like “Free Mind,” “Higher,” and “Damages” played a significant role in her rise to global stardom, with “Free Mind” becoming a viral hit years after its release and earning a spot on the Billboard Hot 100. That kind of slow burn longevity is rare, and it says everything about how genuinely the music connects with people.
The EP’s reach extended even further when Future’s “WAIT FOR U,” which samples “Higher” from For Broken Ears, became the first song by an African female artist to hit one billion streams on Spotify, topping the Billboard Hot 100 and earning Tems her first Grammy win for Best Melodic Rap Performance.
800 million streams for a debut EP, self-produced, released independently by a then-unknown artist out of Lagos. The numbers are remarkable, but what they represent is even more so: proof that Tems built something built to last from the very first project.