There are some people whose lives make you pause because you realise that one title can never tell their whole story. Kemi Fred-Adetiba, fondly known as LadyKemz, is one of those people.
She trained as a lawyer. But as I got to know her work, I found myself moving between different parts of her life: her writing on identity, her music, her work with women, her resources for mothers, her work around marriage, and her involvement in education and community support. Each time I thought I had found a way to describe what she does, another part of her story opened up.
I began to wonder whether the question was not how one person could do so many things, but what happens when the life you are building refuses to fit neatly into the title you started with.
This question took me to her work with women. Through The Fierce Woman Co. and The Fiercely Confident Series, Kemi creates room for conversations about identity, confidence and the woman a person is becoming. Her work also includes You Powered and OUSIA: Woman, Know Thy Essence. Across these different expressions, I kept returning to the question of who we understand ourselves to be, beyond what we do and what people call us.
At some point, I found myself asking, “Wait a minute, how does she move so effortlessly between these different expressions?” One moment, I was exploring her work with women; the next, I was listening to her music, reading about her books and discovering other aspects of her work. How does one person move between all these things and still have a thread connecting them?
And then, I found my answer in identity.
You see, Kemi speaks about identity, and I believe that when you know who you are, whose you are, and have completely yielded yourself to God, the question is no longer simply how you move between different expressions. It becomes a question of how you work with your Creator in different seasons, using the gifts He has placed within you.
I think sometimes we make the mistake of assuming that because we trained for one profession, that is the only way we can make a contribution. We identify ourselves by what we studied, the work we do or the title we have earned, and everything else becomes an addition to that identity. But what if those things are not competing interests? What if they are different expressions of the gifts, convictions and purpose God has placed within us?
This is what made me look at Kemi’s work differently. Rather than seeing a lawyer who also writes, sings, teaches and works with women, I began to wonder whether these were different ways of expressing something deeper. Perhaps the connection is not in the activities themselves, but in the person carrying them and the One she believes is directing her steps.
Her books offer another way into this conversation. In Woman, You Are Fire and I Saw the Lord: Beholding God and Becoming Like Christ in Adversity, we encounter different aspects of her interests. One turns towards the woman and what she carries within her; the other explores faith and the process of becoming more like Christ, even in difficult seasons.
What interests me is the connection between knowing who we are and becoming who we are called to be. We can spend so much time thinking about what we want to achieve that we forget to ask who we are becoming in the process. And sometimes, the difficult seasons of our lives raise that question in ways that success never does.
This is where Kemi’s music comes into the picture for me.
When I came across songs such as Fire in My Belly, Your Greatness and You Won’t Stop (Live), I found myself looking at her faith through another expression. The woman who writes about identity and the woman who makes music are not necessarily telling different stories. Music gives her another way to express what matters to her, creating room for worship, prayer and things that may be difficult to put into ordinary conversation.
There is also The Outpour: A Sound of Intercession with Prophetic Prayers & Declarations, as well as a retreat in Reading, UK. I would love to hear Kemi speak about this side of her journey in her own words, particularly how she understands the relationship between music, ministry and the other work she does.
I found myself thinking about this again when I came across her work around motherhood. And at this point, I was already thinking, we need to sit over breakfast to really understand and unpack this woman.
Because through resources such as The Mantle of Motherhood, The Motherhood Blueprint and For Sign and Wonder Prophetic Declarations Every Parent Should Speak Over Their Children, Kemi is turning our attention to the responsibility of raising children and the place of faith in that journey.
Motherhood changes you in ways that can be difficult to explain until you experience it yourself. It brings demands and responsibilities that do not always fit around the plans you have made. For a woman who is also writing, building, serving and creating, there is a lot to navigate.
This detail matters to me because conversations about women and purpose can sometimes focus so much on what women do outside the home that they leave out the other parts of their lives. Yet the woman doing the work is also living a life, raising a family, making decisions and learning along the way. These parts of our lives do not always sit in separate compartments, and the things we learn in one place often follow us into another.
Perhaps this is also why her work around marriage caught my attention. Together with her husband, Olumide Fred-Adetiba, Kemi is involved in Before the Aisle and After the Aisle, which addresses relationships and marriage. Olumide also leads the Godly Men Collective. Kemi and Olumide are also the lead stewards of The Finishing Church, Abuja, a Kingdom Community with a mandate to equip believers become like Christ, through knowledge, transformation and impact.
Here, the conversation about identity moves beyond the individual. Knowing who we are matters, but so does how we show up in our relationships. Marriage, family life and ministry bring us face to face with parts of ourselves that may not be as visible when we are working towards personal goals or pursuing things we care about. Our values are tested in ordinary, everyday moments, often away from public attention.
It is easy to speak about purpose as though it is something that happens only through our work or public achievements. But our lives are also shaped by the people we love, the responsibilities we carry and the choices we make when nobody is watching.
And then there are the parts of Kemi’s story that reach beyond the home and into the wider community.
Her involvement with Unique Blossom Schools and FIST Africa (Finishers Initiative for Social Transformation) brings education and social transformation into the picture. There is also her involvement in community support, including food assistance in Mpape, and her work with Kappa & Omega.
At first glance, these may seem far removed from conversations about identity, confidence or becoming more like Christ. But I found myself wondering what happens when the things we believe are taken beyond the pages of a book, the words of a song or a conversation in a room. What do they look like when children need education, families need support and communities have practical needs?
For me, this is where the different parts of Kemi’s work become particularly interesting. Faith is one thing to speak about; it is another to consider how it shapes the way we respond to the people and situations around us. The connection may not always be obvious from a list of projects, but looking across her work invites us to consider how personal convictions find expression in everyday life.
I was also interested in the experiences that came before the work she is known for today. Her upbringing and education are part of that story, even though I would like to know more about how those experiences shaped the decisions she later made. We often encounter people after they have built something recognisable, and it can be easy to forget that the work we see today has a history of its own.
The question of how one person makes room for so many interests and responsibilities kept returning to me as I explored Kemi’s work. I don’t think it is always helpful to present a life like hers as though the secret is simply doing more. We often celebrate people for the number of things they do without asking what it takes to sustain that work or what they have had to learn along the way.
There is a difference between recognising the many things a person carries and assuming that every part of their life must always be in full bloom at the same time.
Sometimes, different parts of our lives take turns. Some seasons call for building; others call for learning, resting or paying attention to something we have neglected. We may also need other people, good systems and a willingness to collaborate if the things we care about are going to grow beyond what we can do alone.
I kept returning to the question of titles because it is something many of us understand. When we hear that someone is a lawyer, we may assume we know the direction their life will take. When we meet a writer, we may expect their story to remain within the pages of a book. We do this to people, but we also do it to ourselves. We choose a description of who we are and sometimes hold on to it long after life has begun to make room for something else.
Kemi’s story has made me think about how limiting that can be. The title we carry may describe something true about us, but it may not tell the whole truth. It may tell people what we trained to do or what they know us for, without showing them everything else that matters to us.
I am not suggesting that we must all do many things or keep adding new roles to our lives. That is not the point. What matters is being willing to pay attention to the different parts of who we are and recognising when there is room for another part of our lives to find expression.
As I got to know Kemi’s work, I found myself thinking less about how many things she does and more about the thread running through them. Faith, identity, family, service and the desire to help others grow appear in different forms across her work. They may not all look alike, but perhaps that is precisely the point. A person’s life does not have to fit into one description for the different parts to belong together.
Sometimes, the next chapter will not ask you to become someone else. It will simply ask you to bring another part of who you already are into the light.
