Kae Tempest is an English poet, writer, recording artist and playwright from Lewisham, South London. His practice moves between printed poetry, spoken-word performance, hip-hop, theatre and fiction, using rhythmic language and close observation to examine class, intimacy, identity and collective life. His work includes the narrative poem Brand New Ancients, the poetry collection Hold Your Own, the albums Everybody Down and Let Them Eat Chaos, the novel The Bricks That Built the Houses and the National Theatre play Paradise. Across these forms, character, voice and the cadence of everyday speech remain central.
Tempest received the Ted Hughes Award in 2013 for Brand New Ancients, becoming the youngest poet to receive it, and was named a Next Generation Poet in 2014. Everybody Down and Let Them Eat Chaos were nominated for the Mercury Prize. He later received the Silver Lion at the Venice Teatro Biennale for his work as a playwright and an Ivor Novello for songwriting. These projects connect literary craft with music and live performance rather than treating each medium as a separate practice.
In 2026, Jonathan Cape published Tempest’s second novel, Having Spent Life Seeking. Centred on Rothko Taylor’s return to a seaside hometown after fifteen years away, the book follows family, forgiveness, addiction, desire, selfhood and community. The publication was accompanied by book-tour conversations and readings, continuing Tempest’s use of performance to extend writing beyond the page.