What the song is about
The title is the answer to a question nobody asks out loud: what do you need? Tems's reply, repeated until it lands, is that whatever it is, it is not her. The lyric moves in two steps. The first verse describes a love that has become conflicted and directionless — she cannot tell where it is going, only that it is not going well. The second verse makes the decision: she needs to be alone now, and she says the other person will be better once she is gone.
That framing is what makes it more than a standard breakup record. Tems is not blaming anyone and not asking to be forgiven. She is refusing to be the thing someone else leans on when she knows she cannot hold the weight — which, as more than one reviewer noticed, is heartbreak presented as recognition rather than rejection. Asked by BBC Radio 1Xtra where it came from, she laughed and said the song was her “getting over a breakup”. She has not said whose.
It also fits the EP it closes out. Love Is a Kingdom is a set of love songs about boundaries and self-knowledge, and Emmanuel Muna of Premium Times called this track “Tems in complete command”, delivering “one of her fiercest performances, choosing solitude over an unfulfilling relationship”. Pitchfork called it “the EP's turning point”.
How it was made
“What You Need” came out on 21 November 2025 through RCA and Since '93, as the sixth of seven tracks on Love Is a Kingdom, Tems's first release after her 2024 debut album Born in the Wild. It was written by Tems (Temilade Openiyi) and produced by her with GuiltyBeatz (Ronald Banful), the Ghanaian producer who has worked with her since her breakthrough and with Beyoncé on The Lion King: The Gift and on Renaissance, where Tems also appears on “Move”.
The production is the point. GuiltyBeatz keeps it stripped back — a dry, clipped drum pattern and a lot of air — so the record is mostly Tems's voice moving around the space. Muna heard Timbaland in the rhythm; what is certain is that the restraint is what lets the repeated hook do its work, because nothing else competes with it.
How a performance video made it a hit
The EP was two months old when it caught fire. On 29 January 2026 COLORS published a stripped-down performance of the song, and that video — now the most-watched version of it, past the official one — sent it onto the Billboard Hot 100 for the first time. It debuted at No. 93 on the chart dated 14 February 2026, her seventh Hot 100 entry and only her second as a lead solo artist, after “Free Mind”.
Then it kept climbing for half a year. It reached No. 29 on the chart dated 8 August 2026, the highest a Tems solo single has gone in the US, and on the chart dated 26 September, its 26th week, it is at No. 29 again. It has gone to No. 1 on Billboard's R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay chart, No. 5 on Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs and Rhythmic Airplay, and No. 2 on the UK Afrobeats chart. She performed it on The Tonight Show in April 2026 and at that year's BET Awards.
Who is Tems?
Temilade Openiyi, from Lagos, first reached most of the world as the guest voice on Wizkid's “Essence” in 2020, then won a Grammy for “Wait for U” with Future and Drake, wrote for Rihanna's “Lift Me Up”, and released Born in the Wild in 2024. Her signature is a low, unhurried alto over Afrobeats and R&B rhythms, and a habit of writing about self-possession rather than longing — which is exactly what this song is. She also appears on Dave's “Raindance”.
The video
The official music video, directed by Ayinde Anderson, was released on 3 June 2026 — more than six months after the song, and after the COLORS performance had already made it a hit.
The official video, on TemsVEVO. The COLORS performance from January 2026 is the version that first sent the song up the charts.