Tems’ “Love Me Jeje” is a heart-wrenching reprise of Nigerian 90s nostalgia

I’ve listened to dozens of reactions to this song. Lots of these people aren’t Nigerian, and they tend to trip over the pronunciation and meaning of “Jeje”.

But it doesn’t matter. Tems’ “Love Me Jeje” quickly bypasses your neurons, and hijacks your nervous system. In seconds, most people will find their bodies moving without explicit permission.

For the ones who can’t turn their brains off for more than two seconds, “Love Me Jeje” translates itself in the first bar.

Love me jeje, love me tender

“Jeje” is the Yoruba word for “softly”. Or more aptly, “gently” — because in modern Yoruba slang, “Jeje” has evolved to “Jeje-ly”, which kind of sounds somewhat like “gently”?

By now it’s obvious that to love someone “jeje”, or jeje-ly 😉, would mean to love and cherish someone tenderly. Everything about how this track was crafted manifests that sensibility. The bass line has a lot to do with it, it’s the definition of smooth and gentle, with its sliding transitions. I feel like it deftly reels you in like an experienced dance partner, puts its arms around your waist, and, with a feather-light touch, rocks you, very softly.

Now, if you were just a random person anywhere in the world, going about your business on the internet or in your music app, and the algorithm served you this song, I think you would be super happy. It’s ridiculously versatile. In the club, it’s a reliable squad sister or wing man. It’ll keep you company and calm your nerves on the drive home in rush hour traffic. It can set the mood pre-Netflix and chill, or close out your candlelit dinner, and solve the global population crisis. I said it. This song can save the world.

But if you’re Nigerian, especially one like me who grew up in the 90s, Tems’ soft and sensual take on a late 90s Nigerian afrosoul sensation — which was also called “Love Me Jeje”, affects you on a much, much deeper level than someone without that context and lived experience.

Let me explain.

Nigerian 90s nostalgia time capsule

When Seyi Sodimu released the OG “Love Me Jeje" in 1997, it was an instant hit. Nigerians at home and abroad were mesmerised by his sound and chemistry with Shaffy Bello, his vocal collaborator.

If memory serves, it dominated national TV and radio rotations for years. Because it was so culturally prominent, other stuff that existed in that time and in the zeitgeist got baked into what is now a very potent time capsule that makes me feel things like it was just yesterday.

Things like rushing back home from school to catch the children’s belt of television programming on NTA 2 Channel 5, when it came on by 4pm, praying earnestly that NEPA — the National Electric Power Authority, as it was known back then — would “bring the light”. Like it still unfortunately is today, electricity from the power grid was very spotty, and my family didn’t have a generator. On the days when there was electricity, I would sit and wait in front of the TV, letting the SMPTE colour bars and tone entertain me, till the broadcast station came online with the sound of the Nigerian national anthem.

I remember waking up at 5:30am on Saturday morning to catch Cadbury’s breakfast television cartoons. Again, if NEPA would allow it.

I also remember hot Sunday afternoons, sweating and famished in the backseat on the way back from 2nd AND 3rd church services. My siblings and I would beg our parents to buy us “FanYogo” frozen yoghurt from street vendors, not much older than us, who chased vehicles to sell their wares in Lagos’ traffic jams. 

This line in particular, transports me back to that time: 

Love me jeje, love me tender / You know your love turn me up like NEPA ⚡💡

If you’re not Nigerian, you probably didn’t notice it. Or you did but didn’t think much of that strange word at the end? That’s because it’s explicitly coded to that base of Nigerians at home and in the diaspora that know what NEPA is. Which now, you also do. Just look at how these guys react.

Okay, let me try to break that reference down a bit more. The reality of day to day life for most people in Nigeria is that power from the electric grid is so bad that not having it is the default. So when power does show up unscheduled, cheers of “UP NEPA!!!” ring throughout the neighborhood, and that’s the cue to drop everything you’re doing and iron your clothes, or cook beans, or whatever else you need power for. Productivity shoots through the roof. At least until NEPA inevitably takes the light again.

You know your love turn me UP like NEPA ⚡💡

Do you get it now?

I was ten years old when Seyi Sodimu’s “Love Me Jeje” dropped. That time of my life is mostly a blur now. But Tems’ version is a nostalgia spice bomb that brought childhood memories flooding back. Memories of what life was like towards the end of a military junta so brutal, we had to cook with sawdust sometimes, because kerosene was so expensive. But also memories of watching Tales by Moonlight, and hopping on Ms. Frizzle’s Magic School Bus. Sometimes, Christmas would come early if one of our parents returned home with Gala sausage rolls, or Goody Goody chewy caramel candies. Tems doesn’t do much to touch this nerve, but her execution is so surgical, it’s uncanny.

This is Lagos

It’s safe to assume that most people will experience this song purely as audio. And that’s fine. 

I hope that more people see the video, though. There’s a bunch of versions floating about the internet, including live renditions. But the specific one I’m talking about is the one where Tems rides around Lagos Island in a rickshaw, and at times precariously perched on some sort of large moving vehicle, on Ahmadu Bello Way.

Apart from the cute Seyi Sodimu cameo towards the end, there’s lots of little details in the video that make me smile. Tems takes this opportunity to paint a rich portrait of Lagos as it is today, that also nods to the sensibilities of the time and style of the video for the original song, most visibly in the colour grade. But it goes further, taking us from inside of the “Lagos house party” setting, into the Lagos streets that I recognise from when I used to spend up to four hours each day in traffic, from Yaba, to Obalende, to Victoria Island, and back, riding those same rickshaws, motorcycle taxis and Lagos’ signature yellow and black-striped “Danfo” buses.

To me, the Tem’s “Love Me Jeje” music video is like jollof rice and plantain – two foods that are perfectly capable of being enjoyed by themselves, but when they come together, well, they form Voltron. In this analogy, I think the video is the crisp, fried-to-just-golden-yellow plantain to the song’s jollof rice, and I hope the algorithm shows it to more people. It’s clearly not an afterthought.

Back to the future

Tems has reached out across time to catch 1997 lightning in a bottle, and then proceeded to unleash it on the world in 2024.

Not everyone is able to pull off this sort of intergenerational crossover in the way she has, with deep consideration and respect for the provenance, but also in a way that the result is 100 percent her own thing. The bright chord progression, airy melodic texture, distinct light and bouncy Afrobeats time signature, lyrics and arrangement, are all hers.

What she did keep from the original — an 8-bar refrain — are an homage to a time of my life that made me, me.

Love me jeje, love me tender…

I didn’t realise you could pack so many feelings in such a small space.

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PS: It’s been just over a year since I left Lagos, and unlike the Nigerians who start looking for Amala and Pepper Soup the minute they land in a different country, I haven’t felt homesick. Not once. Although, I will admit that I ate Isi Ewu and Plantain one time in Glasgow. Only because Larry dragged me there.

I got past the point where NEPA’s vicissitudes affected my daily life long ago. But I don’t miss the pervasive ambient hum of generator power that you can’t escape, even if you happen to live in ostensibly uptown area codes like Lekki or Gwagwalada.

Now, I find that when I play this song, I might pine – just a little – for Freedom Park, Glover Court suya, and palm wine.

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PPS: I’m on Twitter, and would love to hear your feelings about this song.