Kae Tempest is a pseudonym of Kae Esther Calvert who grew up and remains in… Read Full Bio ↴Kae Tempest is a pseudonym of Kae Esther Calvert who grew up and remains in South-East London, UK. Tempest started out as a rapper, toured the spoken word circuit for a number of years, and now works as a poet and playwright too. Their work includes 'Balance', their first album with their band Sound of Rum, 'Everything Speaks in its Own Way', their first collection of poems, published on their own imprint Zingaro, which comes with a CD and DVD of live performance; 'GlassHouse', a forum theatre play for Cardboard Citizens; and the plays 'Wasted' (published by Methuen Drama) and 'Hopelessly Devoted' for new writing theatre company Paines Plough.

Kae's epic poem Brand New Ancients won both the Ted Hughes Prize for innovation in poetry and a Herald Angel Award. It is published by Picador and toured nationwide until April 2014. After a sell out show at St Anne's Warehouse, Brooklyn, Brand New Ancients received a rave review in the New York Times and came to international attention.

Kae continues to work with music, and featured on the track Our Town, a collaboration with producer duo letthemusicplay (Greco-Roman) They also featured on the track Hot Night Cold Spaceship (Speedy Wunderground) and has collaborated with Sinéad O'Connor, Damien Dempsey and Bastille.

In 2014, Tempest released their debut album Everybody Down (Big Dada, Ninja Tune), which was produced by the acclaimed Dan Carey and was nominated for the 2014 Mercury Prize.

Kae has performed at Glastonbury and all major UK festivals, as well as performing internationally. They sold out the Old Vic Theatre in London for the launch of Everything Speaks… and has appeared on BBC TV and radio many times performing her poems. Kae has been commissioned to write for The Royal Shakespeare Company, Amnesty International, Barnado’s and Channel 4 Television.

Their second poetry collection was published by Picador in Autumn 2014.

In April 2016, Kae's debut novel The Bricks That Built The Houses was published by Bloomsbury and was a Sunday Times Bestseller. It won the Books Are My Bag Best Breakthrough Author Award.

In September 2016, it was announced that Tempest would curate the 2017 Brighton Festival. They released the album Let Them Eat Chaos on 7 October 2016. It debuted at no. 28 on the UK Albums Chart, and was also released in book format (Picador). The album was nominated for the Mercury Prize in 2017. They were nominated for Best British Female Solo Performer at the 2018 Brit Awards.

In 2019 Tempest released their 4th studio album, The Book of Traps and Lessons, and went on to tour it around the world, reaching Australia in January 2020.

Tempest's song "People's Faces" was used for the Facebook commercial "We're Never Lost If We Can Find Each Other", created by the agency Droga5, and released on 9 April 2020.

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