Breathe

[Intro: Kae Tempest]

Can you drop the mic down a bit? Yeah

[Verse: Kae Tempest & Alloysious Massaquoi]

When I stand at the mic, the whole world I have known

Is contained in the breath before speaking

My life condensed to a sentence:

I'm just tryna be someone the child I used to be could believe in

Breathe in, odd kid getting even

The evening's a dream that the morning can't sleep through

A day in the life, or a life full of days

I started to writе when my life was a maze I was lost in

Looking for a way out of thе ways I didn't want

But what you want isn't something you can choose

It chooses you

Take my body, take it all

(What are you?) What are you?

That was the question, but what was the answer?

Tryna make sense was a senseless endeavour

Head down, stick to the plan

The plan was sit down with a pen in your hand

What I found when I picked up the mic was profound

New ground, the soundworld was basslines

And sticking my head in the bassbins at raves was elation

Saved by the act of creation

Snatched from the jaws of destruction, the crossroad were clear

Write or go under

Yeah, it was messy for a minute

The only thing that made sense was my lyrics

And I was in the rave fighting demons

When the boy got stabbed, started bleeding

And I was so high that I couldn't even help him

I just stared at the blood on my trainers for ages

Sat down in the corner waiting for what?

Once something's happened, you can't make it stop

Five years later Alfie got shot in the stomach

I should have been there but I wasn't

What are you made of? How many selves do you carry?

How many hells must a person inhabit

Before they can see their life hangs in the balance?

If you want it, eventually, you've got to make it happen

Or it swallows you into its folds, a rogue planet exploding

But on the outside I was nothing, too big for the city I lived in

My spirit was hurting for something I couldn't determine

My body was alien to me

Persuaded myself that rhyming would lift me

Out of the cage I was trapped in

Back when I used to spit bars at the bus stop

Cap down, hood up, clap twice, wake up

Later stage-fright, shaking, taking

Questions from someone from the paper

When did I become a writer?

I was just a drunk with a bag and a lighter

You are what you do repeatedly

You are who the people see, but I was shook

When my friends were fucking girls

I was sitting in the corner scribbling in my book

Too stoned to get up, too scared to look at the mess of my heartscape

Bright lights, dark place

Thinking I'm gonna make it one day

Hiding in plain sight, rhyming to take flight

And leave my numbness behind

Up there on the stage, wasn't bound by the same rules that drowned me

The days poured down and the nights were loud

Blink twice and the world disappeared

Six weeks on the road and it's ringing in my ears

Beers for fears, beers for tears for years

And my body was made out of a million stars

Everybody Down had dropped and everybody danced

I was in the van on tour

When my ex-wife said, "I can't do it anymore,"

And I never went home, just kept settling the score

With a mic in my hand and a song to roar

Dysphoria, didn't know the name or the symptoms

Going through the motions tryna fit it all in

I was touring three shows, tryna draft a novel

Looking out the windows at the motorway

How do I tell my story? It don't begin and end with me

My story is my folks' folks coming into London looking for a way to be free

My story is my sisters' kids with the listless edge I recognise

Attention deficit, head in five thoughts at the same time

I take my place in the long line of people whose voices

Shake in my voice when I raise my voice to say my words

Eighty thousand people in a field

Holding up my mic like a shield

Holding up my mic like a shield, it's real

I used to be a boy when I was young

Then I hit puberty, I had to be a girl

I really, really tried to become

Someone who belonged in the world

And then it really started kicking off with work

I was writing like I'd been desperate to do

So many people couldn't live a dream

Or live a minute without screaming

For the troubles they were carrying within them

And here I was travelling the world

And being asked for my opinion

But inside was a cavern bigger than the Solar System

I was different, I could feel it, I was different

It was killing every sensation, it was hidden

It was taking up too much room

It was gripping my windpipe and stopping my words

I was on stage giving people my heart

But my heart wasn't even concerned

My heart was alone in the dark of my ribs

Tryna talk me into doing what eventually I did

What's the story here?

Live your fucking life because

No one's gonna know if you kept it all inside

When you lose the will to go another day, another night

Everything has changed

And everyone I am is everyone I'm made of

And everyone I'm made of is everyone I've loved

And everyone I've loved is everyone I judged

Like they weren't going to love me if they knew what I was

But what was I?

Neither and both, getting closer to myself and time

Now I've finally spoken my mind and the child I was

Sitting there writing rhymes to eternity

Can put down their pen and believe in me

The child I was writing rhymes to eternity

Put down their pen and believe, breathe

[Outro: Alloysious Massaquoi & Graham Hastings]

Take my body, take it all

There's nobody you can call

Take my body, take it all

Ain't nobody you can call

Oh, oh, oh

Frame me in forever

Ten times the weight of pleasure