Kae Tempest

Kae Tempest has built a striking career spanning poetry, rap, playwriting, and fiction, revealing an instinctive mastery of language while treating every medium with insight and empathy. Having started out as a spoken-word artist and rapper during adolescence, the London-born creator has referenced a broad array of inspirations ranging from Wu-Tang Clan to Samuel Beckett and Tracey Emin, a range borne out by honors that include the Ted Hughes Award for 2013’s Brand New Ancients and dual Mercury Prize nominations for the inventive rap and spoken-word records Everybody Down and Let Them Eat Chaos. Tempest’s distinctive voice and emotional acuity have also drawn acclaim for volumes of verse and the prize-winning 2016 novel The Bricks That Built the Houses. Turning gradually from the more straightforward rap manner of earlier projects, the 2019 album The Book of Traps and Lessons presented a restrained fusion of soft organic pulses and acoustic instrumentation. Three years afterward, 2022’s The Line Is a Curve reintroduced electronic textures and assembled an array of singular featured artists.

Raised in Brockley, South London alongside four siblings, Tempest took a job at a record shop at age 14 and, at 16, enrolled at the BRIT School for Performing Arts and Technology. During this period the first live appearances took place at Deal Real, a hip-hop record store in London’s West End that hosted open-mike nights, which led to early support slots for figures such as Billy Bragg and Benjamin Zephaniah while still in the teens. Tempest later obtained a degree in English Literature from Goldsmiths, University of London, and in 2010 formed the hip-hop collective Sound of Rum even as a solo performance-poetry career was underway. In both contexts, bills were shared with an eclectic mix that encompassed post-punk poet John Cooper Clarke and rapper Scroobius Pip. Sound of Rum issued the album Balance in 2011, and Tempest’s debut poetry collection, Everything Speaks in Its Own Way, appeared via Zingaro Books the following year.

After Sound of Rum disbanded in 2012, Tempest concentrated on solo work as a performer, poet, and playwright. The first play, Wasted, was completed, and in 2013 Brand New Ancients was staged with orchestral accompaniment at London’s Battersea Arts Centre, subsequently receiving the Ted Hughes Award for poetic innovation. Also that year, the play Hopelessly Devoted opened at the Birmingham Rep Theatre.

Signing to the Ninja Tune-affiliated Big Dada imprint, Tempest began a sustained collaboration with producer Dan Carey and delivered the debut solo album Everybody Down in 2014, which earned a Mercury Prize nomination. Picador released the next poetry volume, Hold Your Own, the same year. In 2016 the first novel, The Bricks That Built the Houses—an exploration of class, race, and sexuality—appeared and captured the Sunday Times Award for Best Selling Novel. Later in 2016 the conceptual second album Let Them Eat Chaos, structured around seven addresses on one London street, was issued; again produced by Carey, it received another Mercury Prize nomination and was simultaneously published as a book. Tempest curated the 2017 Brighton Festival, was nominated for a BRIT Award for Best British Female Solo Performer in 2018, and saw the poetry collection Running Upon the Wires released that year. Returning with a third album in 2019, The Book of Traps and Lessons once more featured mainstay producer Carey along with additional input from Rick Rubin and adopted a stark, ominous atmosphere. The pendulum swung once more on 2022’s The Line Is a Curve, a release centered on acceptance and release whose warmer, more ensemble-oriented sound and measured rhythmic approach incorporated guests including Brockhampton’s Kevin Abstract, Lianne La Havas, and Grian Chatten of Fontaines D.C.; Carey again handled production duties, as on the three prior albums.