NXNE Review: Kate Tempest, June 17, Adelaide Hall

Kate Tempest

I’ll never get tired of watching Kate Tempest slay the crowd. For the uninitiated, it can’t be anything but a revelation. While most hip hop artists have hype men or a DJ shouting out instructions to the crowd, Kate Tempest is the sole voice on stage.

Her NXNE showcase started with The Beigeness, perhaps her most famous track. From the first note of the opening track, she has your attention. Delivering razor sharp lyrics with frantic, yet laser like precision against a pulsating beat, it’s one of the shows where you feel the energy build through the crowd and it’s great.

As someone who has seen her before, it’s exciting to see the crowd go through the same stages you went through. First you are like, “let’s see what this hype artist is all about”. Followed by “.. Whoa she is good”, and then “this is actually really fucking good” and ending with “now what?” Those are pretty much the moments you live for when you go to a music festival and Kate Tempest delivers that in spades. Now that the first chapter of her career has completed (this was the last show on her whirlwind tour), it will be very interesting to see where she goes from here.

Posted on by Ricky in North By Northeast

About Ricky

Britpop lovin Chinaman, consumer of all things irrelevant. Toronto Raptors fan.