Good morning TNC crew,
You join us today for a Life & Times chat with Kae Tempest, the South London rapper, novelist, spoken word artist and poetic polymath who has established himself as one of the most vital British voices of the 21st century.
It's Niall here. I spoke to Kae over Zoom on Friday for a very entertaining, thoughtful and funny Life & Times chat. I first interviewed Kae back in 2019 for the Q podcast The Making Of. I was a bit nervous in the face of interviewing a prize-winning literary great who might be a bit too serious and smart for me to keep up with, not realising that what I should’ve been nervous about was that Kae would spend quite a big chunk of the interview taking the piss out of me, hooting as he did. It was an unexpected lot of fun. As you can read below, Kae says people often make the same mistake.
Next week, Kae releases his staggering new record Self Titled. It’s his second since transitioning in 2020 but in many ways feels like a debut. After a decade spent closely working with producer Dan Carey, Kae teamed up with Fraser T Smith for Self Titled and it has resulted in the most epic and expansive album of his career, one that takes in sweeping soundscapes, imposing hip hop grooves, euphoric pop and more. Everything sounds ramped up and super-powered, Kae’s commanding vocal delivery punchier than ever. Hooking up with Smith, he says, unlocked something.
“Me and Dan are like family,” he said. “But Fraser and I have just met since transition so he's meeting me in this moment, in this person who's not attached to who I was before. There was something maybe about that that enabled him to want to produce me now as I am.”
Self Titled comes out next Friday but in the meantime, here’s two brilliant cuts from it:
Onto our Life & Times interview, then, and a reminder that edition is free for all to read but if you’d like to support what we do and also get full access to each and every edition of The New Cue (plus our whopping, 500+ edition archive), then you can become a paying subscriber for just £5 a month:
Enjoy the edition,
Ted and Niall
The Life & Times Of… Kae Tempest
What was the first record you loved?
I fucking loved Tina Turner’s Private Dancer. I loved that record! I thought it was so good, I think, because of the stories or something. My mum had it on vinyl and I remember the front cover being exciting in some way, her high heel shoes and that.
What was the last record you loved?
There’s probably a tie between two. I loved Streams Of Thought Vol. 3, which is Black Thought’s quite recent mixtape releases, which I think have been incredible. What I love about these is that this is a rapper 30 years into his career and I think making his best work now. I think he’s better now than he’s ever been and I think that’s about the maturity, the perspective, the flow, his commitment to his craft and his lyricism. It’s rare in lyricism to hear somebody grow up on the mic and because he’s been on the mic since he was fucking 17, with The Roots all the way through, this particular little run of mixtapes, I’ve been so excited by but especially that one. And then Shabaka put a record out last year called Perceive Its Beauty, Acknowledge Its Grace and it’s just stunning. It’s got all these beautiful features on it and it’s his first journey into the ceremonial flute. It’s mind blowing what that person kind of gets up to musically.
What’s your earliest memory?
I remember being under a table at a massive family gathering at my nan’s, crawling and looking at everyone’s shoes and socks. I’m from a very big extended family but once my nan passed, we didn’t really get together so much. But I’ve got this really good feeling, because I was one of the youngest grandchildren, of always being bundled around by loads of kids, and then being under the table, time disappears, doesn’t it? Grown-ups just fucking hang out for hours, drinking and smoking fags and I remember it was like being in different worlds, like going through the wardrobe into Narnia or something, being down under that table. I must have been about three years old.
What’s your daily domestic routine?
It depends what I’m doing. I’ve just submitted a novel that I’ve been working on for years. The way that it is is, like, if I’ve got three weeks to finish a year’s worth of work, then I have to do it, so sometimes my daily routine is insane, like I’m woken from an insane sleep that might be an hour long at two in the morning and it’s, ‘Right, it’s time to go’ and I’ll be out the door to my studio. Take the dog, walk to the studio. Get there, work until four o’clock in the afternoon or something, pass out for a couple of hours, wake up again, keep going, go and get some food somewhere. It’s insane.
When was the last time you got out of bed in the morning and went, ‘You know what, I’m just gonna chill’?
It’s quite tough to find that time at the moment, but it’s coming. And when I do get them days, I’m good at doing nothing. I love it.
Looking across your CV, I find that hard to believe.
When I can do fuck all, I love it. But it’s a bit of a push at the moment. But then when I’m in the studio, I love order, routine. I love it, because my brain is so chaotic that to have these parameters to push against is really useful. On this record, for example, we would start at 10 in the morning. You’d wake up and Fraser’s place is beautiful, it always seemed to be sunny, even if it wasn’t, it felt sunny. You have a really gorgeous coffee, sit around, go into the studio and then we’d work 10-7. We’d always have lunch at one. It was like paradise. But then when you tour, it’s different. All the things that I love to do every day to feel good, like exercise and eating well and drinking water and getting sleep, they’re like special treats.
Who or what is the love of your life?
Maybe life itself. I’m lucky, I’ve got a lot of love in my life. I love my music, I love my work, I love my family, I love my friends, I love my lovers, I love my fucking dog. I love where I live, I love my neighborhood, but I can feel a lot of love for a very small moment and that’s something that is the most important, just being excited by remembering that things are exciting, remembering how fucking wonderful it is that you’re here at all.
What’s your worst habit?
I’m really bad at leaving the house. It takes me fucking ages. I’ve got ADHD, can never find anything. Getting stressed out about the things that are hard to cope with whereas actually, if I could just not stress about things, everything would be fine. But that’s the thing that I would like to grow out of, getting in my head about how annoying I am.
When were you most creatively satisfied?
Whenever I’m in creativity, it’s always satisfying. It’s abundant. I like it when I’m down in the engine room, but it’s hard. It can be very difficult, it always feels a bit beyond me and you’ve always got to push quite hard to get there, so it’s not satisfied, it’s like searching or something. It’s constantly muscling up to try and accommodate it but I love that feeling. I feel satisfied with this record and I feel really good about the novel I’ve written. It feels a good time at the moment creatively.
Has anyone you’ve ever met made you feel starstruck?
Yeah, there’s lots of people where I’ve been reduced to silence. I rapped my way backstage to meet Pharoahe Monch and then I got to his dressing room and didn’t know what to say and he was just sat there.
Sorry, stop there - what do you mean you rapped your way backstage?
I used to do this thing when I was a teenager and in my early 20s, where I’d go to a gig and I would wait and if I didn’t have a ticket, I would rap my way in. I’d go to the bouncer and be like, ‘Look, I’m here, I love music, these are my lyrics, please let me in, I don’t want to drink, I don’t want to cause any trouble. I just want to fucking watch the music’. And eventually, if somebody was a decent one, they would let me in. I would watch the show and then I knew where all the backstage bouncers were in all the venues in London, I’d go to the bouncers and I would rap past one, and then you get down a corridor, you do it again, do your lyrics, rap past another one, and you just keep going, keep going, keep going, and eventually you get to the backstage to the dressing room, and then you’d knock on the door, and you’d be like, ‘Right now you’re here, what’s gonna happen now, there’s just a person in there who’s just come off stage, drinking some water and taking their fucking shoes off’.
That’s amazing. Have you ever tried to do it in a situation that wasn’t a gig, see if you can break into a building or something?
No, it was always in an environment where lyricism was the focus. But one time, when I was really young, me and my cousin got busted by his mum blazing. I was like, ‘We’re about to get in trouble’ and I told her this lyric, this rap I’d written about how much I love smoking weed because it chills my head out or whatever, I had this long lyric about how brilliant it was to smoke weed and after I did this whole rhyme, maybe she was just so surprised, I don’t really know what she was thinking, but we never got in trouble anymore.
Hahaha! Who or what is the greatest influence on your work?
Every day, I absorb so much that comes out through the work that I make. It’s my way of processing life and experience, I listen to everything I engage with in one way or another, I’ll be turning it over in my head to be like, ‘What am I learning from this?’, I wonder what they were thinking, I’m always taking it apart without even realising that’s what I’m doing.
What’s your pet peeve?
I find it difficult when people are impatient and rude with the people that are providing them service, and people don’t acknowledge that that’s a human being who’s working really hard. People that are rude and intolerant is so weird to me. I find it tough when I see people being rude to the people they’re buying a coffee from or someone who’s bringing them a sandwich or someone who’s selling them a train ticket, I find that a bit painful.
What would people be surprised to learn about you?
I’m not that deep. I’m just a fucking normal geezer.
You have got a big element of deepness though…
Yeah, when it comes to it, obviously in my work but in my day-to-day that’s the thing that people are most surprised by when we hang out. They’re like, ‘I thought you were gonna be so sincere all the time’. I mean, yeah, there is that side of me, but also I like to have a day off as well!
What are you scared of?
I have anxiety so I’m scared of a lot of things! But I try to battle it with love. I feel fear for the safety and well-being of the people in my life but then I try and feel acceptance that actually worrying about things is worse than facing whatever actually happens. So everything and nothing, really.
If you could go back in time, where would you go?
Ooh, I like Paris in the twenties, I like New York in the forties. I’d like to go 300,000 years back in time just to see what was going on at the beginning of us. I feel like time is simultaneous anyway, it’s still happening, all of it. Also New York in the 80s, 90s, heavy, heavy, good music.
What one book would you recommend our readers read?
I love Patrick Hamilton’s Hangover Square, I love it forever and ever.
What was the home you grew up in like?
It was noisy, chaotic, beautiful, complicated.
How do you spark creativity?
I spark creativity by giving myself permission to be useless, cliched, no good, and just getting on with it anyway.
Do you mind getting older?
No, I’ll tell you why I don’t mind it. It’s because my life has just begun. I’m older than I’ve ever been, of course, aren’t we all, but I’m also suddenly alive in a way I never knew. It feels incredible to be where I’m at right now. I’m alive and I’m so grateful and thankful. It’s the most beautiful moment I think I’ve ever lived.
What’s your favourite film and why?
Honestly, my favourite film is Raging Bull. I know it’s kind of misogynistic, there’s no queer element to it, but I just fucking love that story. I love Jake LaMotta. I love Robert De Niro. What I love about that film is when he’s older and he’s in front of the mirror and he’s rehearsing his poem before he goes out, that feeling of the vulnerability of the stageman who’s used to fighting life and he’s got his cigar and he’s going out in the club, I think it’s one of the most truthful portrayals of ego, vanity, desire, pain, selfhood, how to create your own story in your own mind to make it bearable. Also, I love the sport, I love boxing. I think it’s beautiful, I love that film.
What’s your favourite restaurant?
I love food, I love eating out. But yesterday, I was in Paris and we had a couple of hours before getting on our train, we went to this restaurant called Casimir around the corner from Gare du Nord and I had a really nice meal there. I have a million restaurants that are my favourite, I don’t know if that’s my favourite restaurant but yesterday I was at this place and it was really, really nice.
What talent would you most like to have?
I’d like to have a massive voice, I’d love to have a beautiful voice because I think that’s something you could do a lot of good in the world with. People love to hear people sing with beautiful voices.
What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Finally accepting, facing, loving and being myself.