Kae Tempest (formerly Kate Tempest) is an English spoken word performer, poet, recording artist, novelist and playwright. At the age of 16, Tempest was accepted into the BRIT School for Performing Arts and Technology in Croydon. In 2013, he won the Ted Hughes Award for his work Brand New Ancients. He was named a Next Generation Poet by the Poetry Book Society, a once-a-decade accolade. Tempest's albums Everybody Down and Let Them Eat Chaos have been nominated for the Mercury Music Prize. An accompanying poetry book for the latter album (also titled Let Them Eat Chaos) was nominated for the Costa Book of the Year in the Poetry Category. His debut novel The Bricks That Built the Houses was a Sunday Times best-seller and won the 2017 Books Are My Bag Readers Award for Breakthrough Author. He was nominated as Best Female Solo Performer at the 2018 Brit Awards. Tempest came out as non-binary in 2020, then as a trans man in 2025. Tempest released his fifth studio album Self Titled in 2025, via Island Records, and his forthcoming novel, Having Spent Life Seeking, is due to be released on 30 April 2026.
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