Party: Kate Tempest

Party: Kate Tempest

Kate Tempest started out as a rapper, and remains one. She earned her stripes in south London's battle scene and the now legendary Deal Real and Speakers Corner ciphers. For over a decade Tempest has been devoted to her craft, writing and performing continuously, whether rapping acappella at punk raves, or rapping with a DJ at an open mic or rapping with a band on tours across the UK, she has been committed to music since the minute she started. In recent years, she has found most success as a poet and a playwright, no mean feat considering it all began with a love of beats and rhymes and good rap lyrics that told stories.
She continues to write in different forms. She makes no distinction between the value of a dope rhyme and the value of a beautiful sonnet. For her, it's all about the lyrics and telling them sincerely. She won the Ted Hughes prize last year for her epic rhyme Brand New Ancients, and a new collection of her poetry will be published by Picador in the Autumn, making Tempest arguably the first artist ever to combine this mastery of poetry with genuine hip-hop chops. She’s no slam poet, providing a sanitised facsimile of a scene she isn’t part of, she’s a hip-hop artist deeply embedded in the culture, making music that’s arctic-fresh.
Everybody Down is a sustained narrative album with each track contributing to the longer story. The Beigeness is one of three tracks that steps outside the narrative to comment on and contextualise the world the narrative happens in. It's also a standout track in it's own right. The driving urgency of Dan Carey's production; itself the kind of raw, reggae-tinged punk-hop that could only come from the British Isles, works perfectly beside Tempest's flow. ‘The Beigeness’ refers to the sort of dulled existence that permeates contemporary Britain, this song is Tempest's plea to the listener to feel life more fully and break out of the beige: 'In the valley of vanity, viciousness, Full schedules and empty containers. We’re kissing the coshes that cripple us. Enjoying the Beigeness.’

Invited: Charlotte Edmondson, Matt Casbolt, Sarah Ollier, Ricky L. Rowley, Florian Fleischmann, Rawdon Parker