Three years after his last album, South London artist Kae Tempest comes out with his brand-new album, self-titled, a 12-track record that is a turning point from the previous releases and is a coming back to his roots, returning to hip hop from slam poetry and spoken word.
Although most of the lyrics written by Kae Tempest are profound and inspiring, maybe this record is the most personal and intimate that traces his entire life. As said by the artist himself, this record could be a new beginning, which could not have existed without the previous releases. All his thoughts, emotions, reflections, and everything that has accompanied him in the previous years.
Usually an album is self-titled when an artist releases his first album, and as we have written above, this could be a new start for Kae Tempest. This fresh beginning brought new things to his music: after four records with producer Dan Carey, Kae Tempest started to collaborate with Fraser T. Smith; also he returned to his basics, when he was younger and started approaching his music career with hip hop.
All the songs are a look at the past, like in ”Breathe”, where Kae retraces what he has happened. The words hit you and can’t leave you indifferent. The construction of the songs takes a lot from poetry, using a metre that comes much closer to that than from a classic song structure; even the music production is closer to modern electronic music than to modern hip hop.
Many artists have collaborated with Kae on this record, like Tom Rowlands from The Chemical Brothers, whom we can hear in ”Know Yourself” and in ”Diagnoses”; go give a listen to the former one, do those sounds remind you of anything? Always on this song you can notice that we hear two voices that seem to complement each other’s sentences; this track is made with a sample of an open mic event when the artist was in his early twenties and the actual Kae is complementing his same sentences.
Every song on this record has something to give you. As I mentioned before, the metre of the lyrics is more similar to a poem than to a classic song, but every track has something that remains imprinted in your mind. For example, the refrain from ”Sunshine On Catford” is one of the parts that is forever embossed in my mind: “I never knew / How little I knew until I met you / I never knew / How perfect things were, until I was perfect for you / I never knew / How little I knew until I met you / I never knew / How perfect I was, until I was perfect for you” or the voice in ”Bless The Bold Future” that says ”I can hear you calling”, a song where Kae asks “Bring a child into chaos like this? / Bring a child into danger like this? / The whole world is a factory floor”.
This is an album to listen to carefully, every single verse is meticulously crafted to give a precise definition of what he wanted to say. Nothing is left to chance, both in the lyrics and in the music and this makes this a fascinating record to listen to whether you’re a fan of Kae Tempest or you’ve yet to discover him.
