KAE TEMPEST - Self Titled

I’m alive, thirty-five years dying to breathe

Was on my knees, fighting panic at thе back of the stage

Looking for salvation in the crowd

If Kae Tempest were a ghostbuster, they'd probably be the kindest of the squad, but also the most relentless. Picturing them on the Ecto-1 is still a bit of a stretch, though. So it's best to come straight back down to earth, among the streets of a London that's 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 with no half measures, no circumstantial hyperbole, no flights of fancy.

We're back three years after "The Line Is a Curve" to settle a question that was, deep down, still unresolved, and above all to reaffirm that there are no more curves along the way. To do so, Kae writes a love letter split into twelve acts and addressed to the child they once were. This, in the end, is the heart of an album that's wildly different from its predecessors. A record that also offers new stylistic ideas, a different and less wayward epic than the logbook the rapper has sketched out in their lyrics so far, as ever dense with inner parables and noble 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 evokes a flow and sound reminiscent of Missy Elliott, before zeroing in on the diagnostic paradoxes that have shaped their recent journey, as well as offering an authentic reflection on neurodivergence.

Me and you and our diagnoses

All cosied up but it’s hard to focus

Me and you and our trauma flashbacks

Relaxing at home with a hornet’s backpack

Stuffed full of my dysphoria

Your dyspraxia, off exploring

Panic attacks to get the heart rate up

Good cardio-vascular, will get back to ya afterwards

Short psychotic episode

A quote from Carl Jung (“Everybody seeks their own existence and insures their own existence against that complete atomization in nothingness”) opens and closes “Hyperdistillation”, and Tempest explains why: “It's an invitation to look again. We're all more alive than we give each other credit for.” These are words that frame a song which is also, stylistically, the clearest clue to the new direction Kae is taking, abandoning twisted rhythms in favour of airier, occasionally orchestral arrangements — adopted partly on the candid advice of Fraser T. Smith, Grammy-winning producer who has already worked with Adele and Stormzy.

“Self Titled” is, in places, a triumphant album. Kae's voice also explores uncharted territory, venturing even into r'n'b, as on “Forever”, almost a Winehouse-style song(!). Or on the closing “Till Morning”, a sweetly suspended coda of piano and guitar that may well hint at where Kae's sound is headed next: a hammock swaying in the night among the stars, slung between trees to rock the torments of a fragile soul that has finally made peace with God, or whatever stands in for God, the Earth and mankind.

If you saw the younger you, what would you say to ‘em?

I would say thanks

I would say peace

I’d tell them, “Soon child, you are gonna find release

The other single from the batch, “Know Yorself”, is a neurotic dance in a minimal key, staged to tell (and shout to) the whole world about psychodramas left behind, dark times, and the necessary turning points on the way to one's own happy island. It's one of the most pressing moments on an otherwise balanced record, sitting alongside faster episodes like this one and others that crave undertow and sunlight before unleashing a chorus quite unlike anything in Tempest's songbook so far (“Sunshine On Catford”).

“Self Titled” risks being, ultimately, Kae Tempest's most complete album yet, helped along by 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 very early days. In short, there's rather too much self-awareness, and as a result that magical recklessness that once made Kae Tempest's releases feel like elusive volleys of stones gets lost along the way. A setback? Yes and no. “Self Titled” can still go down in history as the album of Kae Tempest's long-awaited fulfilment. And that's reason enough to love it, even dressed up and tidied in musical terms as it is.

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16/07/2025