Kae Tempest review – a brave, intimate set where the personal is political
Village Underground, LondonThe laser-focused spoken-word performer returns to the musical stage with new tracks focusing on their identity – but wider concerns are never far away“This has been a performance piece about how technology is going to be the death of us all,” jokes rapper, poet, author and playwright Kae Tempest as a keyboard player and a technician wrestle with malfunctioning equipment.We’re just two tracks in; Tempest assures us that if the electronics are not back up soon, they’ll do the whole show a cappella.They could, too.The teenage Tempest cut their teeth battle-rapping in south London, turning to slam poetry when more direct avenues into hip-hop refused to open easily to a young, blond slip of a thing.You suspect they have never wasted the opportunity when handed a mic.
Given Tempest’s extended output over more than a decade of albums, works of fiction, poems, plays and nonfiction, with prizes and accolades for many of them – you can’t imagine them ever being at a loss for words either,In the end, the cult classic 2025 Tempest a cappella set doesn’t materialise,But throughout the remainder of their show the primacy of words is never in doubt, even as a trio of backing vocalists coo and sway, and instrumentalist Pops Roberts eventually conjures up slick, big-stage sounds from their rig,Tonight’s intimate set concludes a short run of gigs; there’s also a recent new track – the hard-hitting Statue in the Square, out three weeks ago – Tempest’s first new music since 2022,If the signals all point to a new album campaign, five new tracks tonight confirm that Tempest’s emphasis on more personal writing continues.
It’s a direction of travel that crystallised post-pandemic with their last musical outing, 2022’s The Line Is a Curve, then swerved into the 2023 poetry collection, Divisible By Itself and One, and came to its most public fruition in a revealing BBC Arena documentary,A career overview, Being Kae Tempest (2023) also featured candid mentions of hormones and surgery – not least the effect testosterone might have on Tempest’s voice,Their work has always examined where the personal and the political intertwine; how, as per the pithy takedowns of their 2017 track Perfect Coffee, “the squats we used to party in are the flats we can’t afford”,Their discomfort in, and dismay at, the world has been a constant feature,But since coming out as non-binary in 2020, Tempest’s pen – previously given to vignettes about other people – has increasingly taken on their evolving selfhood.
“This is how the new album begins,” says Tempest, launching unaccompanied into a new lyric about the pain of keeping their gender identity a secret for fear that their career would be over; and the relief at finally becoming themselves, an unburdening despite the “bitterness” they encounter when “using the facilities”.Tempest doesn’t mention it, but this gig takes place on International Transgender Day of Visibility.They start the gig in a boxy suit and eventually reveal a white vest top.“I adore us,” they rhyme, “I do everything for us.”A sense of community is the stated upside to the many difficulties Tempest details in these new tracks.
Statue in the Square is more direct still, about how LGBTQ+ figures, denigrated now, will be memorialised in the future, the murky sense of threat in the music (the track was co-produced by A-lister Fraser T Smith) matched by the flames licking Tempest’s words,A fast-paced rap at the heart of the track feels like a throwback to those squat party, mic-passing days,Identity is not Tempest’s only theme, of course,Many of tonight’s lyrics remain furious and despairing of the state of the nation,Another new song remembers someone who is gone; a third, both tender and chilling, finds Tempest wishing they could go back in time to guard a child’s door overnight.
But yet another track reels off a set of conditions and acronyms – “PTSD, ADHD, OCD” – before slyly noting that, with so many letters flying around, it’s handy Tempest turned down their OBE.Displayed on the screens is Tempest’s key message: “I’d be more worried if we weren’t disturbed.” On this evidence at least, Tempest’s forthcoming fifth album is shaping up to be very timely indeed – a mainstream-courting record with a lot to say.Direct, plain-speaking art has a long and powerful history, particularly at times when standing up to be counted against hatred feels like an imperative.And Tempest is a brave artist who does not mince their words.
But there are times in the set where Tempest and the choir do a little elegant call and response, or when fellow south Londoner Tawiah – whom Tempest credits with tonight’s vocal arrangements – comes onstage with some additional vocal texture, where space and musicality take over from the laser focus on words.Fortunately, too, there are tracks such as Grace – from The Line Is a Curve, set against an arpeggiating guitar line – that don’t just plug into love, joy and suffering as universals; they do it a little more obliquely, a little more surreptitiously.It all ends with People’s Faces, Tempest’s 2019 track, and an invocation that is hard to disagree with: “More empathy, less greed, more respect.”
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