Held at Livespot in Lagos on 25 and 26 September, the performances brought two distinct catalogue stories into the room. Tems revisited For Broken Ears, while Runtown placed Mad Over You at the centre of a career-spanning set.
Surround Sound is Spotify’s live performance format, launched from Sub-Saharan Africa, which brings artists and fans together at close range and captures those performances as full-length music films for Spotify. Lagos provides the cultural context for these stories, with Nigerian artists and listeners at their centre.
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Tems: revisiting the music, together
Tems performed For Broken Ears tracks including Ice T and Damages, alongside earlier singles Mr Rebel and Try Me and later material such as Love Me JeJe and What You Need, tracing different chapters of her catalogue.
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Ahead of the performance, she reflected on the beginnings of that journey: “I remember making Free Mind on my bed, on my laptop, experimenting with chords and seeing what stuck. The first two chords sounded so good, and it ignited melodies in me. Those melodies I made on my bed are what is in the song right now.”
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Spotify’s relationship with Tems also reaches back to that period. In September 2020, shortly after the release of For Broken Ears, she became the third artist to join Spotify’s RADAR Africa programme, following South African singer Elaine and rapper Willy Cardiac. Six years later, Surround Sound revisited that early chapter of her catalogue in Lagos.
During the performance, Tems turned towards the audience and invited them to sing along, making the fans’ voices part of the experience.
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Runtown: a familiar song, a shared moment
The following night, Runtown opened with Lagos to Kampala and Gallardo, moving through For Life, International Badman Killa and Unleash. The set also included Kini Issue, drawing together different parts of his catalogue.
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Mad Over You became a shared moment between artist and audience. Runtown performed the song during the set before returning to it a second time to close the show, with fans singing along.
Speaking ahead of the performance, Runtown said: “This is the first time in 10 years I am performing with my band, and I am looking forward to seeing my fans.”
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From listening to being in the room
Spotify’s September 2026 analysis offers context for the continuing relationship with this music. Of the listeners who played For Broken Ears in January 2022, 21.6% also listened in August 2026. Meanwhile, Mad Over You appeared in more than three million user-created playlists at the time of the analysis.
Surround Sound connected that existing relationship with an opportunity to experience the artists live. There was no public ticket sale; Spotify invited selected Premium listeners directly through the platform, using listening behaviour to identify fans for the experience.
“The live room is intentionally intimate and has a fixed capacity,” said Rifumo Mdaka of Spotify. “We use listening signals to reach selected Spotify Premium listeners in Lagos directly rather than running a public ticket sale. The aim is to create a close artist-fan experience while keeping the room suitable for the performance and film capture.”
Across both nights, Premium’s fan value took a tangible form: selected listeners had the opportunity to hear familiar music performed up close, with the audience’s responses becoming part of the experience.
Both performances were filmed for Spotify. Surround Sound presents Tems and Surround Sound presents Runtown will extend those Lagos moments beyond the room, giving audiences elsewhere another way to experience the music. Release dates will be announced closer to launch.