Kae Tempest
(Picture: Matt Writtle)The roar that greeted Kae Tempest as they walked unassumingly onto the stage at Shepherd’s Bush Empire on Wednesday night was the kind usually reserved for the end of shows, not the start. It took a few minutes of rapture from the 2,000 in attendance before Tempest could get a word in, eventually taking the mic to discuss how they believed this show would be a particularly good one due to a certain piece of loved-up graffiti they stumbled upon on the streets of the capital earlier in the day, which they described as a “public display of humanity.”
Similar words could be used to describe Tempest’s gigs, which are intensely cathartic and communal experiences. Sometimes, like on the poignant poem The Point, Tempest would perform a capella, blurring the lines between spoken word, poetry and rap. At others, they would be backed by a cacophony of grimy synths and heavy bass and swagger around the stage like a bolshy rapper. Behind whatever musical guise, Tempest’s voice was instantly commanding.
