Kae Tempest is perched at a table outside a station-side cafe, playing with a cigarette. Murphy, Tempest’s alaskan malamute, stirs as I approach, and on clocking me, Tempest returns the cigarette – still unlit – to their chest pocket. For years, Tempest’s long curly barnet was a trademark look. Today, though, wearing white trainers, upturned jeans and a turquoise jacket, their hair is short, a neat fade that, Tempest says, they still occasionally catch themselves admiring.
We are meeting to take a walk in Catford, south-east London, at Tempest’s request; a corner of the capital they’ve called home since childhood. A prolific poet, author and recording artist, Tempest has spent the best part of a decade touring the globe, but something has always pulled them back here. “People ask why I’ve stuck around,” they say. “It’s because I feel so close to this place, and the people I’ve known my whole life here.” Tempest, now 36, has never felt a need to escape.
We walk for a while, before settling on a quiet riverside bench. It is late January – utterly freezing. Tempest talks about how in their early years, language and lyrics helped them navigate the world – how something clicked when they started rapping among friends as a teenager. They traversed various scenes, taking to the mic wherever opportunities arose. There were squat parties and hippy festivals; east London raves.
“I used to work at a record store, and would even pop out and stand on the high street to rap at bemused kids at the bus stop.” In their early 20s, Tempest found the spoken-word poetry scene. Soon, bookings started to come in, as did an offer to write for theatre. “That’s when I felt these pathways in my brain open up,” Tempest says. “It wasn’t only a 16-bar rap, but narrative: plot, structure, themes. I could feel my mind changing.”
Tempest has an excited energy when recounting each passion project and career high. But when it comes to discussing more personal topics during our interview, they cut themselves off – lots of pensive staring.
In August 2020, in an Instagram post, Tempest came out as non-binary. They announced their name is now Kae (pronounced like the letter K), and explained that, going forward, they would be using they/them pronouns. “I have tried,” they wrote at the time, “to be what I thought others wanted me to be so as not to risk rejection. This hiding from myself has led to all kinds of difficulties in my life. And this is a first step towards knowing and respecting myself better.” Beyond this statement, however, today is one of the first times they have publicly spoken about their experiences.
“Coming out has been huge,” Tempest says, tentatively. “A beautiful but difficult thing to do publicly.” The process has been fraught with pain and uncertainty. “It’s hard enough to say: ‘Hey look, I’m trans or non-binary,’ to loved ones. And I have this twin life beyond my friends and family.”
“Trans people are so loving, so fucking beautiful,” they say. “I think of my community, and how much strength I’ve got from people telling me I don’t have to go through this alone.” Tempest feels the power of visibility. “If I hide, and I’m ashamed of myself, it’s [as if] I’m ashamed of them.”
Tempest is on more solid ground expressing themselves through their work, and their latest offering is no exception. Next month sees the release of their fourth solo album, The Line Is a Curve. Their first two albums received Mercury prize nominations. Tempest has already written three plays, a novel and six poetry books and last year published On Connection, their debut work of nonfiction. “But it’s starting to hit me how different this album is from everything else,” they say, “how far it could potentially go. It’s reaching for something beyond what the others have been.”
Musically, The Line Is a Curve is certainly a more introspective and personal affair than what has come before; Tempest’s lyrical and performance prowess, however, remains consistent. Each track goes in deep: “I can feel myself opening up … I’ve stopped hoping, I’m learning to trust; let me give love, receive love, and be nothing but love.”
For the first time in eight years, Tempest’s face is emblazoned on the artwork, too. It’s a sign, they say, of wanting to invite listeners in, in a way that previously felt difficult. Tempest spent years simultaneously desperate for the spotlight, and hugely uncomfortable inside it.
“For the last couple of records,” they say, “I wanted to disappear completely from the front-facing aspects of the industry.” There was a genuine desire to let the work speak for itself; constantly grappling with the fact that as a writer their output was enough, yet putting out music meant being public-facing. “But this time, I want to be different.”
That doesn’t mean the adjustment is straightforward. “It’s difficult talking to you,” Tempest admits. “Because I know how this goes. What’ll happen next. Trans people are used in these weird ways to express people’s deep fears about other things; obsessed over by people void of humanity … ” Eyes damp, their pain is palpable. “I don’t understand how my body, our bodies, became a territory for war. These bodies we’ve spent lifetimes living in.
“I’ve quit,” Tempest says, “but do you mind if I smoke?” They take out and light that cigarette.
* * *
Two weeks later, I am sitting across from Tempest and Murphy once more, this time in a booth at a south London recording studio. A few days earlier, they’d texted to suggest another meeting. “I shied away from talking about myself last time we met,” they say, slowly. There’s a vulnerability to their voice. “I feel like I have to be careful. I’m a storyteller: I know the power of stories.” Through their work, of course, Tempest shares snapshots of their life. But poetry and prose allow details to be blurred; art can exist in the abstract.
“This whole album, and this process, and me coming out, is me squaring myself with the idea of what being a musician is,” they say, “and how that differs from being a playwright or an author, where you can be less visible.” Part of Tempest longs for that invisibility. “At the same time, what am I scared of? It’s my life.” Maybe, they say, openness might be healing. “The pain of what it used to be – to be interviewed or on telly, that pain is also about [gender] dysphoria,” they say. “And because I’m doing something to treat that, maybe it’s not going to hurt this time.”
“I don’t want to say the wrong thing for my people,” they add. Tempest feels an overbearing sense of responsibility. “When trans issues are spoken about in the press, it’s often not trans people doing the speaking. So in this rare moment there’s a trans person talking about trans things, I don’t want to fuck up or waste the opportunity.”
They take a minute. Sharing stories from their past, Tempest explains, isn’t easy. “Until hitting puberty, I lived as a boy,” they say. “People around me would say: ‘You’re a tomboy, you’ll grow out of it.’ I internalised that, and hoped I would.” That never happened. “Puberty was disorientating. It brought a lot of pain to me.”
What they put on to the page was never shared, but even then Tempest found comfort in words and language. And among their peers, predominately straight, cis-gendered boys, Tempest was accepted lovingly and without question. Nothing needed saying. “I was just one of the guys,” they say: that sense of being known, one of the reasons they’ve never wanted to leave this community. “But when I met someone new, I had to start all over again. A lot of trans kids go through that. And I didn’t have a queer community, or the words to explain, so I was constantly hiding pieces of me.”
Back in the late 80s and early 90s, there was even less understanding and support available for trans and non-binary children. Tempest struggled. “I had ADHD, depression, a panic disorder, and also dysphoria. I was having a tough time existing with my brain in this body.” They stopped going to school, taking GCSEs from a pupil referral unit instead. “I was drinking lots, taking too many drugs. I was away from home for a while.” Tempest expands on this in On Connection: nights spent sleeping in churchyards with a best friend who was addicted to heroin; being touched up by an older man in exchange for beer and cigarettes. The shame they felt about their gender, Tempest says, was all-consuming.
“All this is to say that when I did fixate on lyricism, rapping and music,” they continue, finding a flow, “it was a real lifeline. A balm for the pain when I was confused and unwell.” Day to day, dysphoria was a source of great distress. “Because I was so different to other people, it would freak them out: who are you? What are you? People didn’t understand me. When performing, that was my pass. I didn’t need to pass as either gender.”
Music wasn’t just an escape for Tempest, it also shifted people’s attention away from their body. “When I had rapping and lyricism,” says Tempest, “that’s what I was. Everything else disappeared. I almost left my body behind, and became an artist.”
They were determined to succeed as a performer. But being so visible came with its own set of challenges. Suddenly they were “she” and “her” in the press; nominated in the best female category. Interviews could feel treacherous. It’s not that dysphoria ever went away, but with all eyes on them, Tempest didn’t know how to engage with it.
“I was so desperate to make it,” they say, “I really wanted success. So I just ignored it, and carried on. For a long time, my dysphoria was also hidden from me. For the last 10 years, it has been gnawing away at me. The increasing discomfort of: when are you going to do something?”
Tempest dreamed of cutting their hair. “I wanted to, so much,” they say, “that every time I saw somebody with short hair or a fresh haircut, it would physically hurt me.” For years, Tempest felt trapped in their longer locks: everyone said cutting those long curls would be a travesty. It became symbolic: a shield Tempest hid behind, yes, but also representing their ever-present discomfort with expectations of femininity. “I convinced myself I could never risk cutting it,” they say. “I’d think: ‘If I do, will I still be able to go on stage? People will stop listening.’ It’s wild what dysphoria does to you.
“I was resigned to living the life I was in,” they say, “and then maybe at 50 when I stopped having this career I thought I might be able to finally transition. But increasingly I couldn’t bear it.” In January 2020, they chopped their hair short. Their eyes light up when recalling the sense of liberation. And then, the pandemic hit. For the first time in what felt like for ever, Tempest was forced to take a beat. A few months later, they came out publicly.
“All that fear was about shame,” Tempest says. “I was afraid, because of internalised homophobia and transphobia. I was afraid to be who I was, because I’d learned that it was ugly. I was resigned to being wrong all my life. Coming out and saying I’m trans, non-binary, is me saying I’m on a journey.” They’re still not certain where it’ll take them. “But I realised the ramifications of what might happen didn’t seem as scary as living with this boiling hot secret in my heart for eternity.”
Coming out was never intended to be a radical act. Tempest doesn’t see themselves as an activist. “The poet’s role is different; it’s why I’ll always be hesitant to talk too much about one element of my experience, however huge. Because poetry is vast. It’s rare and profound, bigger than my experience or yours.”
And so it continues. This month, Tempest heads to the US on tour. The European leg starts in April. There is another novel in the works; a book of poetry, too. There’s more, of course. So much of it. “I can feel myself at an important moment creatively,” they say. “Things spinning around in my head; coming out of my hands.” Frankly, I say, it sounds exhausting.
“I am aware my brain is fucking intense,” they reply, cracking a smile. The room feels lighter. “It’s like this weird mate always hanging out with me.” In the past, they’ve crashed hard. “Back in the day, I’d come back from a tour and I’d fall over. I couldn’t even make it to bed. It would take me days to fill the reservoir again.” Now, they hope things might be different.
“I was always me on stage,” they say, “but I was hiding who I was, including from myself … When I perform I go to the depths; beyond gender, beyond body. I leave everything behind. That’s why it was addictive.”
This time, though, it will be Kae Tempest transcending. “I’ve not had a tour where I’ve known this iteration of myself,” Tempest says, eyes closed. “It’s going to be joyful, although I’ve got no fucking clue where it’ll take me.”
The Line Is a Curve is released on 8 April.
