Kae Tempest
Kae Tempest
Kae Tempest
Kae Tempest
Kae Tempest
Kae Tempest
Kae Tempest
Kae Tempest
Kae Tempest
Kae Tempest
Kae Tempest
Kae Tempest
Kae Tempest
Kae Tempest
Kae Tempest
Kae Tempest
Kae Tempest
Kae Tempest
How can I describe the feeling inside
Of being 16 and learning how it feels to speak your peace through a mic?
Alright you're right I never looked the part but I never doubted for a minute cause Hip-Hop was in my heart and my whole heart was in it Hip Hop it was the love of my life man and it still is
How can I describe headphones on a packed train feeling worlds away from the monotionty of the everyday
Sitting in the back of class listening hard to whatever played cause I learned more from the words that I heard GZA Pharoe and Chester say then any fucking teacher at school
See we used to bang the walls in the corridors and set the cyphers up and at first I was mad shy but then hip hop help me find my guts and the verses I'd write and my room came to life in clubs
I be done at deal real every Friday night that's were I saw the kinda stuff that should me so much about the holy mysticism of dope lyricism this wasn't just any old fade of fascination man this was different see I felt more at ease spitting over breaks than I ever felt before so I worked hard to find my natrual pace and understand the dynamics of my flow and I took the rapping greats very seriously indeed
Me and my mates used to practice 8 bars at a time freestyling on the bus home how can I describe how it felt to have love shown by the rappers who my Gods after I had tracked them down at packed shows and spat my manic bars at them and have them tell me that I have flows?
But still people seem surprised because I'm a rapper who's rhymes reference to littering
It was Hip Hop that opened my mind to my abllity to strive for the courage to strive towards what lives in me
The true knowledge to infinite life and relativity
See people seem to think that if you find peace and study that means you ain't hip hop I'm like fuck that hip hop taught us about nurgering our souls with the wisdom of our eather above us and the concerte beeneth our feets but God love us we had to watch our true love getting smothered by the industry
Putting out a message that Rap should be a simile for trash talk and negativity that mainstream keeps propagetting that imagery that Hip Hop is a love of form routed in stupidity
Why is this? I'm sure we can figure it out ourselves right?
We ain't got time to bitch and whine about the state of things cause now we got our minds set on greater things something about changing things
Opening our hearts to the raging wind
You see people get fasincated
Cause I'm a woman on stage who's brain sings louder than her figure does
I feel like um I'm like my body is a storm cloud
Ready to burst and make that shallow river flood
You see just cause I read up on the greats doesn't mean I won't rip it up
Or go diggin' throught the crates looking for the bass to lift me up
See hip hop is a sacred place they can't irridacte because it lives in us
So look if you think rappers are all idiots
Man that's between you and your ignorance
Similairy if you think Blake aint' the illest shit
I beg to talk different
You see me I conversate with God's everyday this is pure influcence some say hip hop is being killed I say it saves it's true citizens
Mate I was listening to Jay Elec' in the rain and I felt brilliance illuminating every cell in my brain I prayed isn't it strange how it all fitting in the molds that they built to contain us because they saw it in it's true form it was raw and too dangerous
People turn around like yeah but the misogyny is horribly overt
I tell em fuck it I I'm a true woman and I know my true worth
And when I write I give birth to my words germinated by every greater rhymer and every great writer that I educate in my famished mind with the work of Me I sat and mediatated while lesser rapper jerked off and wonder why they never made it
The real art should be celebrated and it should be elevated
Cause right now life isn't lived life is demonstrated you know everything as a performer
Hip hop told me there was more and gave me warnings I absorb things from the culture so important for my stature I fucking adore it mate I was born to be a rapper and you can ignore it all you like it doesn't matter cause it will perservere and the people who love it we can see our purpose clear and true alright fam I'm nothing special I just know to let the essence speak through and be a vessel no bravado right but hip hop did show me how to wrestle you over the edge if you try to threating my cargo
Or if you try to whisper the fear into my ear like Iago
Fuck it let's listen to the rhythms of our flesh aging and watch the stars flow mate be your real self show the things they say you can't show
Breathe deep in the boom bap of the beat and believe what your heart knows let yourself be the light in the dark and glow bright and let the bars flow right cause I love with pure energy
Hip hop taught me the importance of being geniune and heavenly
So I challenge anyone who tries to question it's legacy
Hip Hop was written by Kae Tempest.