Kae Tempest - Rap and poetry

From Brockley to Lemnos

O strangers! Who are you? By what fate did you land on this inhospitable shore, bereft of harbours? And what homeland, what lineage should I name, to address you rightly?

(from "Philoctetes", Sophocles)

The entrance of a lame warrior, about to be abandoned, opens and closes the universe of Kae Esther Calvert, known as Kae Tempest. It lays bare its meaning, its perdition, its jolts, its nebulae stretching as far as the eye can see. It all begins with Sophocles and ends up in the mind. From the sunlight of fifth-century BC Greece to the dampness of Brockley. From the lies of the Achaeans to the contemporary disasters of old Europe. Because trying to separate Kae Tempest's poetics from their music is a foolish undertaking, before even being a titanic one. The journey of the English rapper and poet is Homeric. Yet damnably postmodern. Their stopping points, whether contained in a book or a record, map out geographies that connect, one way or another, Greek tragedy to the paradoxes of the present. Ascent and collapse. Sky and earth. Clouds and stones. Gods and workers. Light and oil. It's a floor exercise performed with the tongue instead of the legs, carried out by following, or at least "observing", the teachings of Gil Scott-Heron.

A path officially launched in 2014, passing through Mercury Prize nominations and leading, in 2021, to the Silver Lion for theatre at the Venice Biennale, with an academic citation that leaves little room for further interpretation: "For the luminous audacity of placing explosive, reflective triggers and for still wanting to experiment within a genre considered niche, such as poetry, blending the lofty with the lowly, rage with the tenderness of affection — amid sharp verses and rhymes of Shakespearean memory and strong social content, classical myths and hip-hop hybridisations — managing to speak to the heart of an ever-wider audience, getting right under your skin, forcing you to confront your own painful intimacy". In between, a nomination at the 2018 Brit Awards and awards named after Ted Hughes and T. S. Eliot. And also a clear statement on sexual identity, revealed in an Instagram post: "I tried to be what others wanted me to be, out of fear of rejection, but hiding from myself only brought me difficulties. And this is the first step towards knowing and respecting myself more. Talking about it publicly was huge, wonderful but very hard. It's hard to tell the people you love 'Hey, look, I'm trans or non-binary'.

But let's go back to Philoctetes. To his faltering. To the bite and the wound. Kae, besides reworking Sophocles' famous tragedy in their own version, debuting at the National Theatre in London in summer 2021, rises above the ordinary with a meta-sexual variant of Tiresias, swaying with life and sap, in the work "Hold Your Own", masterfully translated by Riccardo Duranti. Here are a few lines to gauge its measure: “Quando il tempo divide le vite/ Resta te stessa/ Quando ogni cosa è fluida e quando nulla può essere noto con certezza/ Resta te stessa/ Resta te stessa/ fin quando non ti senti/così scura e densa e umida come la terra/ così vasta, e luminosa, e dolce come l’aria”. To then grasp the explosion of a subtle soul, whose inner fluid dynamics escape physical laws, single-pipe plumbing systems, one must go back to the origin, to the first steps, to the movements of someone adrift, poisoned, just like Philoctetes, by the serpent. Which in their case is Medusa's head of hair. So, far more than one. Reptiles slithering supreme in the chaos of existence. It's a metaphor for life that, in the central phase of their career, will turn into a dish served to a society that is by now beyond saving.

With a degree in English Literature from Goldsmiths College in their pocket and a moniker that speaks for itself, "stamped" right on the surface, Kae starts performing in various small venues around their neighbourhood. And later on, as a support act for John Cooper Clarke, Billy Bragg and Benjamin Zephaniah, or with their band Sound of Rum, with whom they would put out a single, soon-forgotten record: "Sound Of Rum".

Red hair and the smile of an eternal child clash with an ability that is, in some ways, innate yet never raw, to deliver rhymes that shake and set fire to everything in their path. It's a concise hybrid, equally intricate, often emphatic, and elsewhere elusive, made up of everyday stories, broken dreams, and multiethnic families sometimes disguised as monstrous figures from beloved Greek mythology, a recurring motif throughout. As happens in the excellent spoken-opera "Brand New Ancients", followed by the coveted Ted Hughes Award for innovation in contemporary poetry. Or in the aforementioned "Hold Your Own", in which the character of Tiresias, turned into a woman by Hera as punishment for seven years, marks out the entire emotional arc. These are tales that barge headlong into today's everyday life through a disturbing rhetoric, one that fires off fragments of absolute truth. Crushing poems to spit in the face of a civil society numbed by media and social networks, ever more intent on feeding an insatiable capitalism, and thus ever more distant from the essence of life itself, from its meanings and its signifiers, to put it in Bene's terms.

Chaos at Breakfast

But Kae is also a keen, hungry musician. An MC with rather unusual traits, certainly far removed from the classic reference points, from old school or whatever else along the west or east coast — it wouldn't matter either way. Because theirs is a style all its own. And their "meter" runs free, heavily shaped by their theatrical background. The flow of words is never rigid, taking on different tones and vibrations depending on the shifting moods scattered through the little chapters of the stories being told. The result is a distinctive vocal musicality, instantly recognizable from the rest of the pack. A trait made all the more striking by a wide, substantial linguistic range. The verses cut deep. Never a filler. Never a rhyme thrown in at random. Everything flows, following the instinct and voice of its own spirit.

Kae tells of last-ditch acts that try to give meaning to one's own condition. Characters placed beyond the wall, uncomfortable figures who can't fully fit into the whirl of life, unable to accept its obligations and the renunciations that come with them. As counterpoint, the music is a well-crafted electronic tangle, predatory and dense with gripping solutions. It's the summa of the masterful debut, Everybody Down, marked by the invaluable contribution of friend Dan Carey, producer and co-author of the record, a constant presence throughout Kae's career. The album's opening is explosive to say the least, and from the very first verses the pervasive mood of the record already emerges: “Everywhere is monsters/ Tits out, wet-mouthed, heads back/ Shouting and screaming just to prove they exist”. In fact, we're looking at a genuine concept album. Each track is tied to the next by a story. By an underlying emotion that traces a well-detailed overall picture. As the rhythm races along, between a keyboard that is now trembling and distorted ("Marshall Law"), now dark and barely perceptible ("Chicken"), arranged to spell out the anxieties of Harry, Pete, Miariam, Becky — all protagonists of a family lunch where everyone has something to confess, an inner weakness to reveal through a dazzling, biting allegory.

The melancholy "Lonely Daze", with its cinematic broken-beat, delicate and only partly sketched out, complete with a sample from Dawn Penn's "You Don't Love Me (No, No, No)", frames the reflection at the heart of its central chorus, born from the dark mood of Pete and Becky: “But will it be this way forever/ These are lonely days/ What if she could be the one that makes it better?/ He looks away, can’t hold her gaze/ But will it be this way forever?/ These are stressful times/ What if he could be the one that gets her?/ She looks away, she’s petrified”.

"The Beigeness" and "Circles" are instead the fastest, most engaging tracks of the bunch. Both built on a percussive layer that at times recalls certain old DFA-style solutions (especially the latter), as insistent and rhythmically circular as needed to burrow into your head and never leave. Meanwhile the words keep raining down like bolts from the sky (“I go round in circles/ Not graceful, not like dancers/ Not neatly, not like compass and pencil/ More like a dog on a lead, going mental”) in a reckoning that allows for no further illusions.

The more subdued "A Hammer" and "The Truth" show Kae's quieter side, while still keeping the quality of the indictment high, in the usual string of unsavory episodes nonetheless useful for making sense of the inevitability of the human condition. The music follows even less jittery, more compact rhythms, yet no less urgent for it. Everybody Down is, in the end, a rap record unshackled from convention and from easy production tricks. A work that stands entirely on its own, a rhythmic tale capable of hypnotizing both mind and skin. It's the album that confirms the arrival of a fluid, genuine talent, furious as a hyena. In Kae's catalogue of dreams, it's Sappho who drives the DeLorean.

Two years pass before Let Them Eat Chaos. Two years spent by Kae between explosive theatrical performances, sprawling interviews, and reading of every kind. Their concerts are immersions into the most authentic self. As purifying as they are shrouds of the collective unconscious. Years that also mark a shift in what had, until then, still been Kae's somewhat disenchanted outlook. Amid wars, attacks, migration flows, walls, and whatever else you'd care to add, the whole world seems to have taken a worrying turn. It's a chain of devastating events that leaves Kae Tempest disarmed and, as a result, pushes them toward an extreme stance against European policies.

Having set aside a more geographically narrow view, Kae starts observing the outside world with the vehemence and unease of someone who has seen far too much. Let Them Eat Chaos thus brings into sharp focus the refusal to accept the evils of globalization in its most reckless form. The album's title and cover underline the afflicted heart and the fury of the then-thirty-one-year-old Kae Tempest. Dominating the scene is an anger that offers no salvation, let alone remedies. There's no light on the horizon. Room is made for devastation and madness, contempt and skepticism.

Kae further widens their scope. If on one hand the pen is still turned toward ordinary people — bound together by a sense of ruin, metaphorized through a perpetual insomnia — on the other hand it's this very life, lived within a global context, that fuels the revolt. A protest made explicit from the very first lines of "Picture A Vacuum": “The people, the life, their faces are bright/ In your body, you’re feeling/ You want to be close to them, closer/ ‘Cause these are your species, your kindred/ Where have you landed?/ Uncurl yourself, stand up, and look at your limbs/ All intact, clothed in the fashion/ This is a city, let’s call her London/ And these are the only times you have known/ “Is this what it’s come to?” You think/ "What am I to make of all this?".

The music, once again overseen by friend and producer Dan Carey (Emiliana Torrini, Miles Kane, TOY, Bat For Lashes), follows the rhythmic patterns laid out in Everybody Down, moving between calmer moments in the vein of Red Snapper (!) ("Lionmouth Door Knocker"), powerful frontal assaults ("Europe Is Lost"), exquisitely hip-hop tempos with the keyboard acting as a metronome in a barely-sketched crescendo ("We Die"), laptop flickers that pave the way for a stubborn, at once hilarious gait ("Whoops", "Don't Fall In"), and little cascades of synth as counterpoint to sudden restarts ("Perfect Coffee"). And even when the storytelling turns softer and more measured, Carey's choices still land perfectly, like the hazy beat of the poignant "Pictures On A Screen". The words wash ashore, often following no meter or physics at all.

These are outbursts that spare no one and nothing. They're full of everyday paradoxes (“Desperate for a body who could save me/ But I never really wondered what they gave me/ Always wanted something else/ Sweating in the dole queue/ Spittin’ like a villain in the pantomime old shoes”, from "Ketamine For Breakfast") and rework sharp political reflections, narrated this time by one of the various characters Kae has created; as in the case of Esther, a nurse and social worker who lashes out at everyone who has chosen to look away in the face of the refugee and migrant crisis (“Europe is lost, America lost, London lost/ Still we are clamouring victory/ All that is meaningless rules/ We have learned nothing from history/ The people are dead in their lifetimes/ Dazed in the shine of the streets/ But look how the traffic’s still moving/ System’s too slick to stop working/ Business is good, and there’s bands every night in the pubs/ And there’s two for one drinks in the clubs”, from "Europe Is Lost").

What grabs the attention, beyond the sheer weight of the words, is the complete absence of anything slapdash, smug, or populist, despite the sheer breadth of the subjects tackled. A danger entirely defused through the use of a sharp, straightforward, effective poetry. Across the thirteen tracks of Let Them Eat Chaos, the fiery tongue and the warm pulse keep on surprising.

Mēden agān

After two such intense efforts, a slowdown might be expected. In The Book Of Traps And Lessons, Kae Tempest in fact reins in part of the script, yet without abandoning their mission in opposition. This time around, the lessons and traps recounted are a pretext for voicing dissent toward a world in collapse and a liberal model in free fall, particularly in their beloved England. The reckoning begins with a very precise warning, placed at the outset of an album whose production booth features the celebrated pairing of the ever-present Dan Carey and none other than the exegete of exegetes himself, Rick Rubin: “I came to under a red moon/ Thirsty for water/ My eyes were like shovels in the soil of the sky”. It is, then, a clear-cut statement of intent, opening 11 tracks split between "lessons" and "traps". A brief introduction, with barely-sketched piano and a bed of synth, that serves "only" to guide the listener to their seat.

The following “Keep Moving Don't Move” lays out in plain terms the slowed-down gait of the record's first side, with a vaguely third-worldist base, between sitar samples and distantly afro-tinged beats, in a formula that brings back the classic trip-hop framework à la Tricky, while the lyrics wink at inner unease (here we go again) with a side of disapproval, complete with an exhortation to lift your head and shake the fateful backside, in the name of a melancholy that by its own “account” is constructive, anything but “sedentary.” The storytelling is, once again, stimulating, but it lacks the all-consuming quid, the hook in the refrain or in the flow. And the impression of being faced with a moralistic slab starts to creep in. A mood as grey as the Moon also looms over “Brown Eyed Man”. Kae seems to have (self-)downgraded from “tornado” to autumn breeze. Between one observation and the next, strings and gloom crash back down in “Three Sided Coin”. While the lyrics, suspended between disgust and pride, ethics and verse, do the rest:

Now the three sided coin buys the bow legged calf

And we’ve been sucking out the milk

From its mother’s teat incessantly

So come on, pump us full of nothingness

And hear us sing the melody

Kae lends a hand to poetry, sometimes at the expense of the music. Something is missing from the pages of The Book Of Traps And Lessons. What remains, then, is a record with a (win)ning refrain that grips you right away, but you have to work hard to get inside it, to catch the hidden signs, the notes slipped under the door, the vibrations.

In “A Human Too Late”, for instance, only the voice emerges, narrating the usual widespread resentment against a racism never defeated and more alive than ever, almost like a formidably gifted student who, somewhat surprisingly, turns the classroom assignment into a poetic outburst: “The racist is drunk on the train/ The racist is drunk on the internet/ The racist is drunk at my dinner table/ Shouting his gun shots and killing us all/ They still live/ Those kind and their dead are still living/ And yes, the anger is rising, the fury/ The which side are you on?/ The when will the guilty be called to account?/ And what can we know of affection?”.

Despite the “minimalist” drift, debatable in part, anyone who loved and appreciated Kae Tempest from the very first moment, in their dual guise of “stage animal” and fallen angel, will find a certain spark missing in some spots.

“Hold You Own” is perhaps the only chance to properly frame the whole matter. And while two notes alternate with each other, giving life to a soft melody, the words induce “tears” and “wide open” interpretations: “We work for vocations until, in remission/ We wish we’d had patience and given more time to our children/ Feel each decision that you make/ Make it, hold it/ Hold your own/ Hold your lovers/ Hold their hands/ Hold their breasts in your hands like your hands were their bra/ Hold their face in your palms like a prayer/ Hold them all night, feel them hold back/ Don’t hold back/ Hold your own/ Every pain/ Every grievance/ Every stab of shame/ Every day spent with a demon in your brain giving chase/ Hold it”.

“Firesmoke” lifts the spirits again, dedicated to their beloved, as Kae states in the album's launch: “I think of this song as a cleansing moment within the wider context of the album, in the same way a relationship can be a cleansing moment within the wider context that is life. A kind of turning point. I wrote it for my woman. She inspired me, and everything I learned from falling in love with her”. “Holy Exir” then lays the groundwork for a rekindled love of the song format in a noise-rap vein: the piano set against the electronic beat amplifies the core of a merciless critique of globalization. A movement that lights the way before the “ballad” – a label to be taken with a pinch of salt – “People's Face” ups the dose again with an angelic piano, almost lending a sense of hope for the future. It's a sweet closing note, as well as clear proof of the dual soul of The Book Of Traps And Lessons, which three years later has become a very distant memory.

Kae, who reappeared to come out as non-binary before publishing their first work of non-fiction with Faber, titled “On Connection”, a collection of short essays digging into the interconnections between human beings through creative means, particularly poetry, improvisation and experimentation, (re)emerges fully in 2022 with The Line Is A Curve. It's the Lewisham artist's fourth album, and it's produced, unsurprisingly, once again by the ever-trusted Dan Carey; it also follows the acclaimed theatre piece “Paradise”, which recently debuted at the National Theatre in London.

This time Kae lays all the cards on the table, betting on communication. On emotional emancipation. On collaboration. Proof of this lies in the presence of several guests involved on the record: Kevin Abstract, Grian Chatten of Fontaines D.C., Lianne La Havas, ássia, Confucius MC, joined by three vocal lines recorded in a single day from three different generations of people, as Kae themselves recounts: “A 78-year-old man I'd never met, a 29-year-old woman, the poet Bridget Minamore, who's a dear friend of mine, and then three young fans aged 12, 15 and 16 who responded to a social media post”. And it's precisely a tirade about social media that opens the curtain. “Priority Boredom” kicks off with a sci-fi-movie keyboard line scored like a Kavinsky set. While the words flood out rage against a society subjugated, more than at any other point in human history, by meta-implications about the primary senses. A tendency that leads to the trivialization of bonds.

In “I Saw Light”, a duet with Grian Chatten of Fontaines D.C., the anguish stays in the shadows; what comes through is, indeed, the search for a light that struggles to show itself. Kae laments a lack of focus in the “lust of the stage”, missed encounters, faded memories. And finds a kindred spirit in Chatten, serving as a bridge to a poetics that marks the steps of a soul stalled, longing to switch back on, amid “slammed doors” and “dismembered hands”. Sophocles' tragedy is internalized. Pain operates in silence. Kae raps in the style of the glory days of Everybody Down on “Nothing To Prove”, among the most hip-hop moments of the bunch. “Hardcore. Last straw. Postcode. Passport. Class war. Stop suffering. Dance more”.

There's a desire to put an end to it all. To rest. To make peace with one's soul. The underlying backing track is once again minimal, a leaning that will largely define the whole record's character. In short, less is more. In this specific case, mēden agān, paraphrasing Chilon of Sparta, Thales of Miletus, Pythagoras and Solon of Athens in one of the maxims inscribed at the entrance to the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. Above all stands the ballad “No Prizes” with Lianne La Havas. The English singer-songwriter brings that neo-soul touch to the refrain, which contrasts perfectly with Kae's raw, blood-and-guts delivery. It's the instant classic of their catalogue. Dead ends, blockages and stopped clocks. No prize. No applause. Nothing. Only the certainty of not having been wrong to have brought a child into the world too soon. Kae “sings” of cover-ups. Of soldiers in Iran forgotten by God and the world. Of servants interviewed and never understood. And of impossible climbs.

The essentialism mentioned above turns to rock on “These Are The Days”, which even almost evokes Pink Floyd (!). It's the manifesto of reconciliation, the track with which Kae lays bare all their fears. Or almost. The definitive liberation sits at the record's center. “Water In The Rain” instead adds a touch of serenity, with ássia's oriental-tinged, rug-like invocation. Past traumas needing to be erased and fresh workloads surface, before “Move” flips the perspective into a synthetic dance useful for crushing “obsessive ticks” or disowning pounds sterling that wallow in the world, slippery as demons at a party. The equally danceable “More Pressure”, this time alongside Kevin Abstract, inadvertently picks up the pace.

It's the one-two punch you don't see coming on a rhythmically restrained album, which closes, surprisingly, with the acoustic guitar of “Grace”. Kae finds grace again “right there where everything is transcendent”. They sing of red moons to take shelter under. Of stopping time and falling silent. And in the end ask for nothing but love. The important words, to borrow a phrase from Nanni Moretti, that Kae uses to define the hidden meanings underpinning the work, such as “shame”, “anxiety”, “isolation” and “collapse into surrender”, ultimately express, at the end of the tunnel, the final confession of a sincere, overwhelming ship's log, one that reveals itself without frills, without making a scene.

If Kae Tempest were a ghostbuster, they'd probably be the kindest one on the team, but also the most relentless. Picturing them on the Ecto-1 still takes a bit of effort, though. So it's worth coming straight back down to earth, namely to the streets of a London that serves as the epicenter of the English rapper and poet's emotional escapades. Because Self Titled is nomen omen for a journey undertaken and completed by Kae without euphemism, circumstantial hyperbole or flights of fancy.

It's a return to settle a matter that, deep down, remained unresolved, and above all to reaffirm that there are no more curves left along the way. To do so, Kae writes a love letter of sorts, divided into twelve acts and addressed to the child they once were. This, at bottom, is the heart of a record utterly different from its predecessors. An album that also offers new musical ideas, a different kind of epic within the ship's log sketched out by the English rapper in lyrics that are, as ever, dense with inner parables and no small number of lofty parallels. As in “Diagnoses”, the third single, co-produced by Fraser T Smith and Tom Rowlands of the Chemical Brothers. It's a jittery track in which Tempest conjures up a flow and sound reminiscent of Missy Elliott, before turning to focus on the diagnostic paradoxes that have shaped their recent journey, as well as offering a genuine reflection on neurodivergence.

A quote from Carl Jung (“Everyone seeks their own existence and to secure their own existence against the complete annihilation of nothingness”) opens and closes “Hyperdistillation”, and Tempest himself explains why: “It's an invitation to look again. We're all more alive than we give each other credit for”. Words that define a song which is also, stylistically, the clearest example for grasping the new direction taken by Kae, who abandons contorted rhythms and embraces more airy, occasionally orchestral arrangements, adopted also on the dispassionate advice of Fraser T Smith, a Grammy-winning producer who has already worked with Adele and Stormzy.

Self Titled is, then, an epic album, at times triumphant. Kae's voice also probes unexplored territory, even venturing into r'n'b, as on “Forever”, almost a song in the style of Winehouse (!). Or on the closing “Till Morning”, a tender, suspended coda between piano and guitar, which hints at what could be Kae's next space to inhabit: a hammock swaying in the night among the stars, slung between the trees to cradle the torments of a fragile soul that has finally made peace with God, or whatever stands in for God, with the Earth and with mankind.

Self Titled may well end up being Kae Tempest's most complete album yet, thanks also to the quality and variety of the collaborations, ranging from Neil Tennant to Young Fathers, Connie Constance and Tawiah. And yet something is missing. There's none of that supreme, all-consuming spark of the earliest days. In short, there's almost too much self-awareness, and as a result that magical recklessness that once made Kae Tempest's releases such unpredictable, scattershot bursts gets lost along the way. A letdown? Yes and no. “Self Titled” can still be handed down to history as the record of Kae Tempest's long-awaited fulfilment. And that's enough to love it just as it is.

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