Kate Tempest

Kate Tempest started out when she was 16, rapping at strangers on night buses and pestering MCs to let her on the mic at raves. Ten years later she is a published playwright, novelist, poet and respected recording artist. Her work includes Balance, her first album with band Sound of Rum; Everything Speaks in its Own Way her first collection of poems, the critically acclaimed plays Wasted, Glasshouse and Hopelessly Devoted (all published to by Methuen).

Brand New Ancients, her self-performed epic poem to a live score, won the Ted Hughes prize 2013 and the Herald Angel at Edinburgh Fringe. It has sold out tours in the UK and New York and is published by Picador in the UK. Her second collection of poetry, Hold Your Own, was also published by Picador on October 2014. Her debut novel, The Bricks That Built The Houses, sold in a highly competitive auction to Bloomsbury and will be published in territories including the UK, US, Germany, France, Holland and Brazil in Spring 2015. Excitingly, each track on the record correlates with a chapter in the novel, in a groundbreaking cross-genre experience.

Kate has toured extensively, supporting Billy Bragg on his UK tour, as well as supporting Scroobius Pip, Femi Kuti, Saul Williams and John Cooper Clarke. She is 2x slam winner at the prestigious Nu-Yorican poetry cafe in New York and has played all of the major European festivals. She’s headlined Latitude festival and has been featured on the BBC’s Glastonbury highlights, Channel 4, BBC Radio 1, 4 and 6, as well as XFM and the Charlie Rose Show (Bloomberg) in the US.

Kate’s new album Everybody Down was released in May 2014 on Big Dada records and nominated for the 2014 Mercury Music Award. It was produced by Dan Carey aka Mr Dan who is one of the UK’s best known and most highly-rated producers. When the two met, Carey invited Tempest to come through to his South London studio to muck about on a track or two. In a burst of intense creativity, they put down the whole twelve track album in a fortnight having spent almost a year developing the characters and story. Hold Your Own and Brand New Ancients will be published by Bloomsbury in the United States in 2015, and The Bricks That Built The Houses in 2016.