{"product_id":"bd242","title":"Kae Tempest - Everybody Down","description":"\u003cp\u003eThere’s a strong, vibrant formal tradition in hip hop: the story rhyme.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e Rather than the bragging and boasting of many raps, in a story rhyme the MC presents a narrative – a street update of Ovid or Homer if you want to get hifalutin about it. Traced back by some to “The Message” by \u003cstrong\u003eMelle Mel\u003c\/strong\u003e, few would dispute that it reached some sort of a peak with \u003cstrong\u003eSlick Rick\u003c\/strong\u003e’s first album, and was carried forward by the likes of Biggie and Eminem. It also had a profound influence on rap in the UK, with artists like \u003ca href=\"http:\/\/ninjatune.net\/artist\/roots-manuva\"\u003eRoots Manuva\u003c\/a\u003e using the form to represent themselves and their city in a myriad of new ways.\r\n\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\r\n\u003ca href=\"http:\/\/ninjatune.net\/artist\/kae-tempest#.UzP-O61_vKw\"\u003eKae Tempest\u003c\/a\u003e is best known as a poet, perhaps a performance poet or a spoken word artist. She has a novel coming out next year with \u003cstrong\u003eBloomsbury\u003c\/strong\u003e. But ask \u003ca href=\"http:\/\/ninjatune.net\/artist\/kae-tempest#.UzP-O61_vKw\"\u003eKae\u003c\/a\u003e what she is and she’s more likely to say she’s a rapper who writes. That’s her first love. Listen to her voice, her cadences, the accent, and you’ll hear more of \u003cstrong\u003eSkinnyman\u003c\/strong\u003e than Seamus Heaney, a veteran of Deal Real’s legendary Friday night rap battles but also someone at home doing a book reading at Foyles. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http:\/\/ninjatune.net\/artist\/kae-tempest#.UzP-O61_vKw\"\u003eKae Tempest\u003c\/a\u003e understands the story rhyme, loves it. Which is why \u003cem\u003eEverybody Down\u003c\/em\u003e is something like a “novel rhyme” – twelve ‘chapters’ telling one long, complex story, a unique, one-off project, almost unique in the history of the form.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cstrong\u003eDan Carey\u003c\/strong\u003e aka \u003cstrong\u003eMr Dan\u003c\/strong\u003e is one of the UK’s best known and most highly-rated producers. He’s worked with or remixed \u003cstrong\u003eBat For Lashes, Toy, MIA, Chairlift\u003c\/strong\u003e and \u003cstrong\u003eHot Chip\u003c\/strong\u003e (and just about everyone in between). When the two met, Carey invited \u003ca href=\"http:\/\/ninjatune.net\/artist\/kae-tempest#.UzP-O61_vKw\"\u003eTempest\u003c\/a\u003e 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.\r\n\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\r\nThe result is a revelation. \u003ca href=\"http:\/\/ninjatune.net\/artist\/kae-tempest#.UzP-O61_vKw\"\u003eTempest\u003c\/a\u003e takes the tropes of the hip hop story – drugs, money, gangsters – and brings them to life in a whole new way, a London way, but also a completely personal way, where she inhabits the different characters and shows the boredom and fear in their lives rather than some faked glamour, shows more than anything their need for love. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eCarey, meanwhile, sculpts soundscapes that pay tribute to the roots of hip hop while melding into the themes \u003ca href=\"http:\/\/ninjatune.net\/artist\/kae-tempest#.UzP-O61_vKw\"\u003eTempest\u003c\/a\u003e addresses, tough and gritty but intensely musical, the sound of a wet winter’s night out in London. He even got US singer-songwriter \u003cstrong\u003eWilly Mason\u003c\/strong\u003e to contribute a chorus! In the end we get an audio story Dickens might have tried to write, one which is, in \u003ca href=\"http:\/\/ninjatune.net\/artist\/kae-tempest#.UzP-O61_vKw\"\u003eTempest\u003c\/a\u003e’s words, quite simply about “loving more.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003ca href=\"http:\/\/ninjatune.net\/artist\/kae-tempest#.UzP-O61_vKw\"\u003eKae Tempest\u003c\/a\u003e has released records on \u003cstrong\u003eGreco-Roman\u003c\/strong\u003e and \u003cstrong\u003eSpeedy Wunderground\u003c\/strong\u003e and for a long time fronted the band \u003cstrong\u003eSound Of Rum\u003c\/strong\u003e (Sunday Best). She won the \u003cstrong\u003eTed Hughes Poetry Prize\u003c\/strong\u003e for her play \u003cstrong\u003e“Brand New Ancients,”\u003c\/strong\u003e which led \u003cstrong\u003eThe Guardian\u003c\/strong\u003e to describe her as “one of the brightest talents around.” Her forthcoming novel for Bloomsbury features the characters and the world built in \u003cem\u003eEverybody Down,\u003c\/em\u003e with a chapter correlating to each track. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBut it’s here on this stunning, sustained piece of work, where each track works on it own, that music fans will hear beyond doubt just what a talent she is.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cobject width=\"430\" height=\"315\"\u003e\u003cparam name=\"movie\" value=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/JEiBdU0tFB0?hl=en_US\u0026amp;version=3\u0026amp;rel=0\"\u003e\n\u003cparam name=\"allowFullScreen\" value=\"true\"\u003e\n\u003cparam name=\"allowscriptaccess\" value=\"always\"\u003e\n\u003cembed src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/JEiBdU0tFB0?hl=en_US\u0026amp;version=3\u0026amp;rel=0\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" width=\"430\" height=\"315\" allowscriptaccess=\"always\" allowfullscreen=\"true\"\u003e\u003c\/object\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cimg src=\"\/files\/images\/kae-tempest\/two\/Kate-Tempest-Product-Shot.jpg\" width=\"430\" height=\"254\"\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Ninjatune","offers":[{"title":"LP","offer_id":44934130598047,"sku":"BD242","price":23.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"CD","offer_id":44934130630815,"sku":"BDCD242","price":10.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0493\/8563\/5999\/products\/everybody-down-main.jpg?v=1736247238","url":"https:\/\/merch.ninjatune.net\/products\/bd242","provider":"Ninja Tune","version":"1.0","type":"link"}