Kae Tempest

This week we have the excellent Kae Tempest joining us for lunch! Kae came by to talk about his beautiful new novel Having Spent Life Seeking. Over lunch, we covered everything from growing up in Lewisham in a big blended family, to music, poetry and the writing process. We also chatted about cooking scallop spaghetti for his girlfriend and giving up sugar, cigarettes and alcohol for Lent. Kae, we loved having you over; a fantastic guest and an enriching, gorgeous afternoon. Kae’s book is available to pre-order now, out April 30th. Listen & watch Table Manners here - https://tablemanners.komi.io/ Follow Table Manners on: Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/tablemannerspodcast/ TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@tablemannerspodcast Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/tablemannerspodcast YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@TableMannersPodcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:06Jessie Ware?

  Hello and welcome to Table manners. I'm Jessie Ware and I'm here with Lenny. We've just had a Barney.

• 1:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, you've just shouted at me.

• 1:13Jessie Ware?

  Shall we tell her why I just shouted?

• 1:15Speaker 03

  Because I didn't make-

• 1:15Jessie Ware?

  You shouted at me first.

• 1:17Speaker 03

  I didn't make dessert and you said you were making dessert. And I said, I didn't know I was making it. And you said, you said you were making it.

• 1:25Jessie Ware?

  You did.

• 1:25Speaker 03

  But we never discussed what I was making. So I didn't feel it. I manifested the dessert.

• 1:30Jessie Ware?

  What happened was that we shouted at each other. I may be slightly-

• 1:35Speaker 03

  You shouted more than me.

• 1:36Jessie Ware?

  -abroad at the moment. I'm quite tired and-

• 1:40Speaker 03

  I felt it.

• 1:42Jessie Ware?

  Well, I felt it too, Lenny.

• 1:43Speaker 03

  Okay, good.

• 1:44Jessie Ware?

  Anyway, it's not the best start to a dinner date that I'm very excited about. We have the marvelous Kai Tempest coming on.

• 1:52Speaker 03

  Multi-talented.

• 1:52Jessie Ware?

  I mean, like, what do you say? Playwright, poet, lyricist, novelist, writer, I mean, everything. Just incredibly gifted person.

• 2:03Jessie Ware?

  He's coming on to talk about his new book, Having Spent Life Seeking. It's his second novel, 10 years on from his, I think, best selling first novel.

• 2:13Speaker 03

  Yeah, Sunday Times bestseller.

• 2:14Jessie Ware?

  Really beautiful, and it's about this character called Rothko, who comes out of prison and has to confront a lot of things of what they left behind. And it's, the characters are absolutely amazing and I loved listening to it on the audiobook. There's one bit of prose that is just insane that Kai reads and says. So we're really excited to have him on and talk about, well, he's also up for an either this week.

• 2:43Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:43Jessie Ware?

  Yeah, that was like, so, yeah, he's having a good week.

• 2:46Speaker 03

  I has time in between all these awards.

• 2:49Jessie Ware?

  I know. So I'm on food duty today and I've made an Easter belfry Instagram recipe that she put up last weekend, which is kind of a coconut tomato base that you whiz up in a blender. It's got turmeric, garlic, cherry tomatoes, curry powder, paprika, honey, coconut oil and coconut milk. And you just whiz it all up. You put all, it's so easy. Put them all in, cook it for a bit to reduce it, and then you plop in some eggs. And then I've done with that her sticky coconut rice cake that I think I made for Amanda Holden and Alan Carr, and then a really nice maple lime sesame

• 3:30Jessie Ware?

  baby gem lettuce salad. And then we've got a big giant cookie that's going in the oven. It actually looks really good. So Kai Tempest coming up on Table manners.

• 3:47Jessie Ware?

  Kai Tempest.

• 3:48Speaker 04

  Hi.

• 3:49Jessie Ware?

  Hi.

• 3:49Speaker 04

  Jessie, where?

• 3:50Jessie Ware?

  It has been so long since I've seen you.

• 3:53Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 3:53Jessie Ware?

  And I'm so thrilled for all your success and thank you for being here. This was quite a nice, easy.

• 3:59Speaker 04

  This is so nice to be here. It's just amazing. What a beautiful place and it feels so warm and it smells so delicious. And I'm very happy to be sitting here talking to you two.

• 4:08Jessie Ware?

  How are you?

• 4:10Speaker 04

  I'm good. I'm good, thank you. How are you?

• 4:13Jessie Ware?

  I'm all right. Mum and I, I'll just clear it out now and then it's done. Let's just get it done, okay? Mum, by the way, I think you look very nice in your daffodil spring lemon. Okay? She won't even look at me. Look. Okay, let's just explain what's just happened, why there's a bit of frost.

• 4:28Speaker 03

  Jessie thought I was making dessert.

• 4:30Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 4:31Speaker 03

  I didn't think I was making dessert because no one had said to me, what are you making?

• 4:37Jessie Ware?

  But this is where Kai, it gets a bit complicated. Cause I did say.

• 4:41Speaker 03

  Right, she said she did, but what, what did you think I was making?

• 4:45Jessie Ware?

  What happened was she didn't bring one and I said, okay, we don't have anything. What are we gonna do? And instead of just saying, sorry babe, you said, I did it. Anyway, so we had this. Anyway, I did. And then you come in, you go, don't worry, I've given up.

• 4:59Speaker 04

  I've given up sugar.

• 5:00Jessie Ware?

  For Lent.

• 5:00Speaker 04

  For Lent.

• 5:01Jessie Ware?

  Yeah. But I've just made a giant cookie and a skillet, so I think.

• 5:05Speaker 04

  I, I mean, that's amazing.

• 5:07Jessie Ware?

  But I don't wanna make you, you know, reneg on your, your goals.

• 5:12Speaker 04

  No, but I'm really glad that you've made a, a giant cookie and my, my. Well, well, my girlfriend is like absolutely like cookie, like cookies are her thing.

• 5:21Jessie Ware?

  Oh, so should we give some for you to take home?

• 5:23Speaker 04

  If I could take some home.

• 5:24Jessie Ware?

  Yeah, that's absolutely fine. Thank you. That satisfies me, actually.

• 5:28Speaker 04

  Then I can appreciate it and almost get the, in fact, get more satisfaction out of watching her enjoy it than I would. Do you know what I mean?

• 5:35Jessie Ware?

  Is, really? Does that work like that?

• 5:37Speaker 04

  Yeah, well, so far it has.

• 5:39Speaker 03

  So no chocolates since, since Pancake Day?

• 5:42Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 5:43Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 5:44Speaker 04

  Or cigarettes. But it's, it's actually hard to give up sugar.

• 5:47Speaker 03

  Why, why have you done this to yourself?

• 5:50Speaker 04

  Um, I, well, it's a funny thing to talk about, but um, I felt like I could, I needed, I need to ask the universe, the divine for a lot of strength at the moment. And I thought, I can't ask for something without sacrificing something. And I was having this moment in Stammer Park in Brighton with a friend. We were just having this really beautiful moment and I realised that it was Pancake Day. And I, I was like, I need to do something. I need to make a change. And I realised it was Lent. So there's this kind of structure in place that supports keeping track of the days. Because there's this thing you can look up, when was, when did I start this Pancake Day? So you can look that up. Anyway, so I just decided to make this um.

• 6:30Speaker 04

  Just to make this movement towards uh rebalancing something and asking for a bit more um focus and grounding. I just think it's important to give in the same manner as you wish to receive, you know.

• 6:42Jessie Ware?

  I think that's really beautiful and I just want to know, is you, are you needing strength because you're bringing out a book or is it something, is it, is it about work related or is it a bit, is it enmeshed in lots of different things or?

• 6:56Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's like this, this moment, it can be quite a challenging moment and yeah, and also life stuff and just, you know, you, you end up getting yourself into places where you're like, hang on, I need to just refocus and just find a bit more of myself in all this. And I think like sometimes I can fall into patterns of drinking lots or eating loads of cookies or smoking loads of fags and then you kind of, the distractions are useful, but actually what I'm more interested in is just be able to cope with from my own resources. When you're touring and things like that, the thing about alcohol um or, or sugar or things like that, they're, they're, they're very much a part of how you

• 7:37Speaker 04

  deal with everything in the day. It's not like in another job, you wouldn't just like casually everyone be drinking at work or maybe they would at some jobs, but in, in music it's kind of, it's everywhere all day and then you, you might have loads of adrenaline after a show and then you could be drinking because you're in celebration mode, but then the next day you're hanging and then you're like, well, I need to have a drink now because otherwise the show tonight won't be very good. And you can end up on this cycle of um not, not being very present and this, this is something I want to be present and well and healthy for because you're going out in front of people and asking them to come and spend their money and give their time to be in a room with you. So I want to be in my best. Um, I just want to be closest to the source as I can be and

• 8:20Speaker 04

  I'm a bit all or nothing and sometimes I need something like uh, I need the structure of it, otherwise I can't make the decision, you know.

• 8:27Jessie Ware?

  Have you, have you started touring or are you about to?

• 8:30Speaker 04

  I've been touring and then

• 8:32Jessie Ware?

  Whilst being on this forty days?

• 8:34Speaker 04

  Well, that's the, the last tour stop, but now I've just been on tour last week for, for a book. It's a different thing.

• 8:40Jessie Ware?

  The book that we're gonna discuss?

• 8:42Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 8:43Jessie Ware?

  By the way, congratulations, we have the book, but I I'm so glad that I got to listen to it in the audiobook form.

• 8:51Speaker 04

  That's really nice.

• 8:51Jessie Ware?

  Um particularly, I think it's chapter eleven in The Old Days, is it chapter eleven?

• 8:56Speaker 04

  Yeah, that is exactly what it is.

• 8:57Jessie Ware?

  It's so powerful. I mean, all of it is, but that is a particularly, I'm so glad that I got to listen to that with the music and the poetry. And it was, congratulations, it's really excellent. And I don't want to give anything away, but I was so relieved for kind of the redemption at the end, because you enter, we enter this story of Rothko,

• 9:25Jessie Ware?

  who's come out of prison.

• 9:26Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 9:26Jessie Ware?

  And it was hard, it was brutal, it was sad. And then slowly, slowly you learn about, and there's, there's love in there, there's so much love in there. But it reminded me, and I, um, I've read a couple of the Douglas Stewart books, Shuggy Bain and Young Mungo, and there was like this very much, and I don't know if that's a, that's a compliment to you.

• 9:48Speaker 04

  No, huge compliment, yeah.

• 9:50Jessie Ware?

  Um, because the kind of chaos and confusion in a kind of mother's relationship with their child and stuff like that, I think that you put that across so beautifully.

• 9:59Speaker 03

  Where did Rothko come from, the name?

• 10:02Speaker 04

  Um, well, it's so interesting when you go, when you try and think your way back to where an idea begins. But I, I thought it just came to me because it's something Meg said, who's Rothko's mum. When you're working on characters, you spend a lot of time with them. At first, you're telling them what to do, you say, think. And then once you know them well enough and you've given them enough of your time, there's this kind of sweet spot when they start to just speak and you become an eavesdropper or something, you're kind of listening to them talk to each other. And then it's like, oh yeah, Meg's. Meg just kind of said to Rothko, oh, you're always going red as a Rothko, you know, it's about the fact that they're always blushing. I knew that I wanted their name to reflect this kind of state of shame, this chronic shame that they carry around.

• 10:47Speaker 04

  But then if I go back even further than that, I was staying at a friend's house. When I was trying to start writing, I knew I wanted to find this character. It was really early stages. And my friend has this place and he let me stay there. And then I went back like two years later, I'd forgotten that I'd been, I'd kind of forgotten that I'd been in that room or anything. And I was staying in the same room and I woke up in the morning and I saw he's got this big poster at the end of the bed. And it's like a list of all these artists that had done an exhibition and it was like the top name in big headline was Rothko. So then at some point, it's gone into my mind's ear, you know, and then it's, you don't really know how you filter and translate everything you look at, feel, experience, it's kind of imagination, experience and

• 11:33Speaker 04

  I don't know, memory, and it all kind of gets filtered through the lens of your imagination and your craft. And suddenly out it comes and now, now it's as if that's just their name. It's always been their name.

• 11:45Speaker 03

  You do write beautifully. I mean, it's very evocative. I, I agree with Jessie, listening to the audiobook was, was very powerful. I mean, we all read, but I loved hearing your voice.

• 11:57Jessie Ware?

  But you, you also, you perform it so well. And that's, you know, part of your craft is this is, you know, how you do it. You also, you act so like, have you done acting?

• 12:08Speaker 04

  No, I haven't done acting.

• 12:09Jessie Ware?

  Would you ever?

• 12:12Jessie Ware?

  Cause I mean, you've done play, you've written plays.

• 12:15Speaker 04

  I'm really interested in the crossovers between actors and how they approach the performance space. And what I know as a musician or as a lyricist when I go out there. Um, I know a lot about the stage and what it does, but I don't, I've never been trained in the way actors are trained about how to embody character and how to.

• 12:34Speaker 04

  Be as inquisitive as actors are about who the characters they're playing are, like the best readers I've found of anything are actors. Because an actor will read a few lines of text and they go so deeply into what that might mean, who that character is. It's it's really something, you know, it's something.

• 12:52Speaker 03

  I I don't think an actor could have read that story like you did.

• 12:56Jessie Ware?

  No.

• 12:57Speaker 03

  To be honest.

• 12:57Speaker 04

  That's nice to hear.

• 12:58Jessie Ware?

  It's it's it is remarkable, Kai, like it's.

• 13:01Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 13:01Jessie Ware?

  Not only, of course, you are a phenomenal poet and celebrated, but it it wasn't just that chapter eleven, by the way. It's the way the conversations between, you know, Dion and Rothko. Or how you can change from that, which has kind of banter and flirting and and and like intense passion to then Ezra. Rothko's father, who I'm really interested by, and it's has acknowledgement of like Judaism, because Ezra's a practicing Jew. I'm really interested because I know that you're of Jewish descent.

• 13:38Speaker 03

  Yeah. Which bit?

• 13:39Speaker 04

  Um, my dad's, my dad's side.

• 13:42Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 13:43Speaker 04

  But so I'm not really, I wasn't, I wasn't baked in a Jewish oven, as they say.

• 13:46Speaker 03

  And were you brought up with any Jewish kind of connections?

• 13:50Speaker 04

  Well, my.

• 13:50Speaker 03

  Your grandparents?

• 13:51Speaker 04

  Yeah, my grandparents, when I would go to my my grand, my grandmother's house, my nan's house. Um, it was, it's more a kind of cultural thing. Um. Her her home just, there was always so many people there. It's one of my first memories is being like on like a Rosh Hashanah or Passover or something. Everybody going there.

• 14:10Speaker 03

  Around the table.

• 14:10Speaker 04

  But I remember being so, being under the table, being so young, you know, when you're crawling under the table and just all of the feet. I remember just, I just, and the sound of everybody talking and.

• 14:19Jessie Ware?

  Everyone talking.

• 14:20Speaker 04

  Everyone talking and everyone smoking fags and eating, eating loads of food and like just lovely flamboyant people, like it was so long ago. And then when she, when she died, it was much harder to get the whole family together because like she was the kind of linchpin of it all. But so my, and I remember them trying to do the story, you know, the stories of like, why on this night, do we?

• 14:39Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 14:39Speaker 04

  And.

• 14:40Speaker 03

  Passover, yeah.

• 14:41Speaker 04

  And I just remember that every, no one was even listening and then they would do the prayers and like, people didn't have the right little hats on, so they would just use like.

• 14:48Speaker 03

  A napkin.

• 14:48Jessie Ware?

  Yeah, a napkin, yeah.

• 14:50Speaker 04

  And I, I just, for me, I associate it with.

• 14:56Speaker 04

  Beautiful, something beautiful. Like, I think for my dad, who was brought up, like, hi- his parents were pretty orthodox, they were, they were, they were like.

• 15:03Speaker 03

  Not you, mum.

• 15:03Speaker 04

  And he didn't resonate so much with it because it was something that was kind of. Yeah, forced on him. And I think for lots of people that are brought up religious, they don't have. I, I have this relationship with religion where, with all the religions, where I find them beautiful and intriguing, and how wonderful that we have these rituals in place. That go back a long time, that can help us deal with the practices of life and living and approaching. The world beyond, which is very present with us.

• 15:29Speaker 03

  Are you formally religious?

• 15:30Speaker 04

  No.

• 15:31Speaker 03

  I mean, would you go to church or?

• 15:33Speaker 04

  I would walk into a church and I would be very moved and I would burst into tears.

• 15:37Speaker 03

  Were your family religious? Did they go to church?

• 15:39Speaker 04

  No, no, but I, I have this relationship with um the old stories. And I, I don't think of the religious stories as literal.

• 15:50Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 15:51Speaker 04

  I just find them very useful um myths. And I'm, I've always been interested in the mythic.

• 15:57Speaker 03

  Well, you did something with mythology, didn't you?

• 15:59Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 15:59Speaker 03

  Um, sorry, um, remind me.

• 16:02Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's all right. It's called, it was called Brand New Ancients. It was a long time ago. And it was a story of just um. Kind of set in this moment, but using old stories as a framework to kind of um. To kind of hang these contemporary stories on this very ancient mode. And also, it was a long poem that I delivered, so it kind of had this like epic. Very old feeling. People, you know, used to memorize. Hours and hours and hours of text, and they would go around telling their stories. And in other cultures, they still do it. In West Africa, the Greeks are still kind of going around with. Hours of like memorized poetry. So I was kind of root, trying to root myself in a tradition that's. Very ancient by standing on stage and just going.

• 16:46Speaker 03

  You were quite young when you started writing poetry.

• 16:50Speaker 04

  Yeah, I was, I, well, I didn't think I was writing poetry. I was, I was.

• 16:53Jessie Ware?

  You're writing lyrics, yeah.

• 16:54Speaker 04

  Music that got me.

• 16:55Jessie Ware?

  So was that when you were at the Brits?

• 16:57Speaker 04

  Yeah, but just before. I went to the Brit school at like sixteen. Um, so it was a B tech type, so like.

• 17:06Jessie Ware?

  Yeah.

• 17:07Speaker 04

  That bit, um.

• 17:08Jessie Ware?

  So you'd left Thomas Tallas by then?

• 17:11Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 17:11Jessie Ware?

  And you'd started refusing to go to school?

• 17:14Speaker 04

  Yeah, I, I wasn't, I wasn't going to school for the, for the last couple of years of it.

• 17:19Jessie Ware?

  Can I ask, is that because, um, you, do you, you have A D H D?

• 17:23Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 17:23Jessie Ware?

  Um, but was it, was it to do with how you were learning or was it to do about kind of uh, social, was it to do with your iden- struggling with your identity? I don't like, what, what, what, do you know why you started refusing?

• 17:36Speaker 04

  Isn't it to look back?

• 17:38Jessie Ware?

  Hmm.

• 17:38Speaker 04

  As, as adults, at the children we were and try and give them the sensibility that we have, like.

• 17:47Jessie Ware?

  No.

• 17:47Speaker 04

  The kid that I was didn't know what was going on.

• 17:49Jessie Ware?

  Hmm.

• 17:50Speaker 04

  And they weren't very well. They weren't, I wasn't very well back then. I was dealing with things that I didn't know how to deal with and I found school a really difficult place to be. But I was very inspired at that time by the things that were, that meant a lot to me. Like music, like fiction, reading novels, like my friends, that these connections were powerful and important. And what was happening at school, uh, or at home, it just, it, it wasn't. There was beauty and, there was a lot of beauty in the world, but it wasn't there. So like, I just wasn't, I didn't go there. But then I found, I found out about the Brit school. I went with my friend and his mum to this open day. And then I was just like, what do you mean all these people can just think about the thing they love all day? I couldn't believe it.

• 18:34Speaker 04

  And I got in there, I did my audition, I was playing, um, like Spanish guitar.

• 18:39Jessie Ware?

  Can you play guitar?

• 18:41Speaker 04

  I haven't played for years. I stopped playing. I think this is actually interesting. I, you know. As somebody um kind of socialised female, my experiences as a musician, when I was in a room of like people kind of assigned male, uh was that I didn't want to assert myself because they, I always thought they were better than me or I didn't wanna, you know, there's just something that you get, you learn about not wanting to um.

• 19:09Jessie Ware?

  Upset the kind of uh.

• 19:11Speaker 04

  It's like, I think hopefully it's changed now, but even there at a Brit School where everyone's a musician, it was like, there was something about it where I knew, I knew that when I fell towards my, my true passion, which was words and lyrics, there was nothing gonna stop me there, like, nobody was gonna be better than me there. So then I was able to kind of flourish and thrive, but I, yeah, I didn't, I, I put the guitar down pretty quickly once I realised.

• 19:35Jessie Ware?

  I remember very, very clearly, I was singing with a guy called Subtract, and we were at Brighton, the Brighton Dome, is it called?

• 19:44Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 19:45Jessie Ware?

  And you were, I was probably with Sound of Rum at that point.

• 19:48Speaker 04

  Bless you for remembering that, that is so.

• 19:50Jessie Ware?

  I remember you because you were so memorable. You had your long hair and you were so strong on that stage. And I think I was with, because we had the connection of Laura Dockrell.

• 19:59Speaker 04

  Yeah, Dockers MC.

• 20:01Jessie Ware?

  Yeah, Dockers MC. And I think there was that connection because you went to Brett together. I think you were maybe older than uh Laura or the same year, maybe, I'm not sure. But anyway, I just remember you. And I remember, you know, I had experienced Laura Dockrell, who is so brilliant and was doing the spoken word thing. And I thought it was just the bravest thing I'd ever seen, like go up and say a poem. Like, I'd only seen that on like Moesha.

• 20:24Speaker 04

  Wow, what, braver than singing?

• 20:26Jessie Ware?

  Yeah.

• 20:27Speaker 04

  Interesting. Why?

• 20:28Jessie Ware?

  Don't know, because like, it's, you're more laid bare, I feel like. You don't have like the music behind you.

• 20:35Speaker 04

  Interesting.

• 20:36Jessie Ware?

  And you're like there and there's no escaping it with like, I guess I feel like you can have the distraction of a melody with it. Don't know. But I just remember you. And I remember, I don't, it must have been, I probably was about twenty, you were probably like twenty five, maybe?

• 20:53Speaker 04

  Well, if it was Sound of Rum, I would have been, yeah, a bit younger than that.

• 20:56Jessie Ware?

  Or maybe you were there as your own artist.

• 20:59Speaker 04

  I can't remember.

• 20:59Jessie Ware?

  But I just remember you. And I remember just thinking like, you were a total powerhouse. And I was so impressed by like your confidence and like determination on stage. It was really amazing.

• 21:10Speaker 04

  It's interesting to think back and.

• 21:14Speaker 04

  You know, I think often that if I had to do those things now, I I wouldn't have the, I wouldn't be able to. It's because of every day that I did all those things that I'm able to be. Don't you ever feel like that? It's like, I was so driven to be close to lyricism and music. It was so important to me. It was so loud. In my head, like, I needed to get these words out, you know, and I and I would do often. Like two or three gigs a night, sometimes just going from pub to pub to pub. And or and I'd stand outside and I'd be rapping on a bench to whoever would listen and on like, like all this stuff. I think about it now. I think I would, I would never go up to a group of strangers. Getting on with their evening at a bus stop and be like, yo, like, check out my bars, you know, but there's something about.

• 21:57Speaker 04

  I have such a debt of gratitude to the the person I've been, the child I was, the adolescent I was, you know, like. The the young adult I was because of all of that, like. Ah, just kind of inability to switch it off. I'm able to get to this point where I'm I can live for my ideas. My ideas are given value by other people, which is. Something that's extremely important. And I I think about the people in my life that don't have access to their creativity, that don't have an outlet. For the things that they feel as artists, we're able to process through this stuff that we make. And it's like the novel, you know, when I was writing it, I had a a kind of couple of slogans up on the studio wall. And one of them is write what you can't bear to admit, which is something.

• 22:41Speaker 04

  A quote said to me by Ian Rickson, a theatre director, dear friend of mine, he he said Ted Hughes said that, but I don't know. I've never been able to find where Ted Hughes said it, but this thing about. Write what you can't bear to admit, you know, go into the wound and from it create. And this transformative, powerful alchemy that you're party to and that you're kind of guided by. It means that you can, you can really be in this life, you know, whereas. If I hadn't done all of that, gone on stage, you know. Put myself through um everything I was putting myself through to just get myself there. I wouldn't have developed this foundational knowledge with with language and lyricism. You know, it gave me, it was my train, it was really, really, it was my training, you know.

• 23:26Speaker 03

  Who who who were your biggest influences, would you say, growing up about about words really and lyrics? Well, what were you listening to?

• 23:36Jessie Ware?

  I'm just gonna be sorting out.

• 23:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. What were you listening to?

• 23:40Speaker 04

  Well, I listened to, this this is actually true, I would listen to anything.

• 23:45Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 23:45Speaker 04

  And be really blown away by how it got made. Or I could listen to something that I didn't enjoy.

• 23:51Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 23:52Speaker 04

  Taste wise, but be fascinated by what they were doing, how they were doing it, what about it wasn't reaching me.

• 23:58Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 23:59Speaker 04

  I had a job at a record shop.

• 24:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 24:01Speaker 04

  Um.

• 24:02Jessie Ware?

  Which one was it?

• 24:03Speaker 04

  It was called Morp's Music, it was in Lewisham Model Market, you know Lewisham Market round the back, I think now it's probably a cocktail bar. But back in the day, it was like a, it was a market and there was like a.

• 24:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, I remember.

• 24:14Speaker 04

  Like they sold like gold and jewellery, there'd be somewhere selling patties and then there was a record shop. And um I worked in the.

• 24:21Speaker 03

  So so what were you listening to?

• 24:22Speaker 04

  Well, the the shop that they put me in was um, it was like dance hall, R and B and hip hop. And I loved hip hop, but I didn't know anything about R and B.

• 24:31Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 24:31Speaker 04

  And it wasn't my taste, but I learned, and I didn't know anything about dance hall. But I, what happened was I got to stand in this record store and watch people come in and talk to each other about this music that I didn't know anything about. And you know what it's like when you, when you hear somebody talking about how much they love something.

• 24:51Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 24:51Speaker 04

  It's like a way in.

• 24:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 24:53Speaker 04

  You're introduced to the world of it through looking at somebody that looks like a really interesting person. And they wanna listen to this record that you've never even heard of.

• 25:01Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 25:02Speaker 04

  So it gave me this like way in to music that I wasn't.

• 25:07Speaker 03

  Well, I imagine in Lewisham, the back of Lewisham Market would be dance hall and R and B and hip hop, yeah.

• 25:14Speaker 04

  Yeah, it was like the the, there was that shop and then there was like a drum and bass kind of vinyl shop and then there was like the rock punk shop down the other end.

• 25:21Speaker 03

  All right.

• 25:22Speaker 04

  But I was, I was just obsessed with music, my. It was the lyrics and the and the performance, the delivery of lyrics that got me.

• 25:30Speaker 03

  So who did you admire like?

• 25:32Speaker 04

  Yeah, at that time, I was listening to a lot of kind of east coast, like golden era.

• 25:39Jessie Ware?

  Explain that to me.

• 25:40Speaker 03

  Okay, I have no idea.

• 25:41Jessie Ware?

  You know, west coast and east coast?

• 25:42Speaker 03

  No.

• 25:43Jessie Ware?

  Rap.

• 25:44Speaker 04

  So in.

• 25:44Jessie Ware?

  Nas, Jay-Z, east coast, west coast.

• 25:47Speaker 04

  Like New York or LA had different sounds.

• 25:51Speaker 03

  Okay, I know nothing about this.

• 25:53Speaker 04

  Well, on the different sides of that vast land, the complexities and the sounds within what the rappers.

• 26:02Speaker 03

  Does that reflect their experiences in life, do you think?

• 26:05Speaker 04

  That. Well, you could think about.

• 26:07Speaker 03

  East coast would be different, New York.

• 26:09Speaker 04

  Well, our accents are shaped by the geography of where we grow up. So people that live in very hilly places tend to have a more up and down melodic flow.

• 26:17Speaker 03

  You're kidding.

• 26:18Speaker 04

  No, of course, like, and also people that live in very flat places, it's it's the the kind of musicality of languages is often to do with what is happening to sound around us.

• 26:30Speaker 03

  How interesting.

• 26:31Speaker 04

  So if you think about LA and New York, two very different.

• 26:34Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 26:34Speaker 04

  Um, the designs of those cities are very different and also the sounds coming out of how people were making.

• 26:40Speaker 03

  Sound that you make.

• 26:42Speaker 04

  But also what was available to people tech wise and what how people were using their samples and what what was happening, like what? What's going on? What's the scene? What's what's the next door neighbour making and you know? So the LA sound was much more kind of bright and sunshiny and the the raps tended to be more aspirational or kind of um a bit more kind of, yeah, bright. There was a brighter light coming, like a spotlight on them.

• 27:09Speaker 03

  So who's a famous New York rapper I'd know?

• 27:12Speaker 04

  Well, for me, at the time I was listening to Most Def or Yacine Bay is known as now, he's from Brooklyn, but maybe. Uh, and you probably would have heard his songs, but maybe somebody more famous would be like notorious B I G or something, you know.

• 27:26Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 27:27Jessie Ware?

  Do you know Biggie?

• 27:28Speaker 03

  I've heard of Biggie, yeah.

• 27:29Jessie Ware?

  Yes.

• 27:30Speaker 03

  And where was Jay-Z? He was on the other side.

• 27:32Jessie Ware?

  No, he was.

• 27:33Speaker 04

  He was also New Yorker.

• 27:34Speaker 03

  He was east.

• 27:35Speaker 04

  Um, but and then somebody like Snoop Dogg or Tupac or something.

• 27:39Speaker 03

  Have you ever done a programme about this?

• 27:41Speaker 04

  No.

• 27:42Speaker 03

  This needs to be told, this story. I think it's so fascinating.

• 27:46Jessie Ware?

  Actually, the whole thing about language and sound and I don't, I knew nothing about that.

• 27:52Speaker 03

  I didn't know that hills would make you have been more lyrical and up and down in the way you presented it.

• 27:58Speaker 04

  But if you think about like within, even within the UK, the more like hilly regions, the more mountainous regions, if you think about like the Welsh accent, how like melodic it is.

• 28:08Speaker 03

  You're right.

• 28:09Speaker 04

  And like how beautifully it reflects the.

• 28:11Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 28:13Speaker 04

  The geography of the land.

• 28:14Speaker 03

  Island, yeah, yeah, the hill, yeah. So everyone in Holland must be very, talking in a very flat way.

• 28:21Speaker 04

  I can't, I, I could, I don't, I don't think I've heard enough Dutch to know the accents.

• 28:26Jessie Ware?

  Well, let's talk about like Oxfordshire or Gloucestershire. They like speak like that.

• 28:30Speaker 04

  Soft, soft and flat, you know, like.

• 28:33Jessie Ware?

  I love this. We haven't asked anything about food yet.

• 28:36Speaker 03

  Bro- Broccoli.

• 28:37Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 28:38Speaker 03

  Not many hills in Broccoli.

• 28:39Jessie Ware?

  Hilly fields.

• 28:40Speaker 03

  Hilly fields, of course, there you go.

• 28:42Speaker 04

  Yeah. I don't know how immediate the effect of the landscape is. I wonder if you have to be in a place for a few generations.

• 28:49Speaker 03

  You have to live it.

• 28:50Speaker 04

  Well, for sure, the different sides of the city produce different accents and like.

• 28:54Speaker 03

  It's fascinating.

• 28:55Speaker 04

  I can, I was in West London yesterday. I was at a recording studio and um even just being around on the street, I was like, wow, it's, it sounds different. Like the West London, I was in Ladbrook Grove and it.

• 29:05Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 29:06Speaker 04

  It sounds different to Lewisham.

• 29:07Speaker 03

  South London, yeah.

• 29:08Speaker 04

  Or even, it, it, it even looks different. I felt like I was on holiday.

• 29:12Speaker 03

  So you, you grew up in Broccoli?

• 29:15Speaker 04

  In Lewisham, but kind of, yeah, Lewisham, Broccoli, yeah.

• 29:17Speaker 03

  Who was round the dinner table when you were growing up? Did you have formal dinners?

• 29:23Speaker 04

  Um, I mean, it was, it's, we have a fairly complicated uh family. There's lots of us, but we're not always in the same place at the same time. So I have.

• 29:35Speaker 04

  I'm one of five siblings, but we're not all the same, um mum and dad.

• 29:39Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 29:39Speaker 04

  The, when it was all five of us and and my mum and dad, it, I remember that being just that that would be the best times, you know, like and we would, yeah, we would all sit around dinner table for sure, yeah.

• 29:52Speaker 03

  Where were you in the?

• 29:54Speaker 04

  I'm the youngest.

• 29:54Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 29:55Speaker 04

  But then when they weren't there, that then it's like you've lost half, you know, you feel like you're kind of.

• 30:00Speaker 03

  So were you the youngest and the other four were from a different marriage?

• 30:05Speaker 04

  It's me and my next one up.

• 30:07Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 30:07Speaker 04

  From my mum and dad, and then they both had different.

• 30:10Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 30:10Speaker 04

  Kids from before.

• 30:11Speaker 03

  So it's a real blended family?

• 30:13Speaker 04

  That's what they call it, yeah.

• 30:14Speaker 03

  They call it now, yeah. What was a memorable dish?

• 30:17Speaker 04

  Um, yeah, my dad's a really good cook. When he was cooking, he'd be in there for hours and hours and hours and he would have. He would do amazing things, actually. I remember one time, like with a with a salmon, like a with a big, like a big fish, like with the scales on and everything, and he was taking all this thing off and the head off and everything like that.

• 30:34Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 30:34Speaker 04

  I think it was a salmon. It was like something like that. That would have been a real special occasion, like when like lots of family would have been there. Or he would do, you know, like a, he he liked like heavy, like roast meat. Uh, you know, like beef or lamb or something like that and all the trimmings and.

• 30:49Speaker 03

  Did you eat together most nights?

• 30:51Speaker 04

  Not so much back then, but, no, not really. But now we get together for food. And it's a big part, it's a big part of how we like to.

• 30:58Speaker 03

  So when's your next getting together? Will it be over Easter?

• 31:03Speaker 04

  Well, everyone's like in different places and it's hard, but I think, um, it's my dad's birthday, actually, tomorrow.

• 31:09Speaker 03

  Tomorrow?

• 31:09Speaker 04

  Yeah, happy birthday, Nige, but the.

• 31:12Speaker 03

  What have you brought him?

• 31:14Speaker 04

  I just sent him um a cake in the post, actually, this morning.

• 31:17Speaker 03

  A cake in the post? I didn't even know you could do that.

• 31:20Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, a nice one. Pistachio and um raspberry or something.

• 31:24Speaker 03

  Wow, delicious. Which, what, which, which?

• 31:27Speaker 04

  They're called cutter and squid.

• 31:28Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 31:30Speaker 04

  Yeah, I've heard of them. I looked up next day delivery cake and then then I was like, wow, these are like, these are good cakes, yeah, these are gonna be over the moon. But um, food is a big part of how we hang out, for sure.

• 31:40Speaker 03

  Do you cook?

• 31:41Speaker 04

  Yeah, all, I love cooking and I love being cooked for and I love to eat.

• 31:46Speaker 03

  What's your best dish that you cook?

• 31:48Speaker 04

  My favourite thing to make.

• 31:51Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 31:51Speaker 04

  Is to just. Come home.

• 31:54Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 31:55Speaker 04

  See what we've got.

• 31:56Speaker 03

  Oh, you see.

• 31:57Speaker 04

  And then if there's like, there's half a courgette left, there's a, I don't know, we've got a tin of kidney beans. What's that? Oh, there's some old, half a thing left in the cupboard, some olives and just to make something. And then it makes me so happy.

• 32:10Speaker 03

  Does it?

• 32:11Speaker 04

  It's just use up. I love doing a use up.

• 32:12Speaker 03

  This is because you're a creative person and I clearly am not.

• 32:15Jessie Ware?

  Improvising.

• 32:16Speaker 04

  I love it so much.

• 32:16Speaker 03

  I can't do it.

• 32:18Speaker 04

  Because actually I need the parameters. If I, if I think, what shall I make? Although I'll tell you something amazing that I made the other day. I'd, I'd finally finished touring and all this stuff and I've, I had a meeting in town and then I suddenly it was, I had free time. And I went to Borough Market, because my meeting was in Underbridge, and I went to the Fishmongers.

• 32:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 32:38Speaker 04

  I bought scallops for the first time in my life and I looked, I, and I.

• 32:43Speaker 03

  You looked it up?

• 32:44Speaker 04

  I looked up like what, how to cook them.

• 32:45Speaker 03

  Minimal cooking.

• 32:46Speaker 04

  Really? And I made a s- um scallop, like spaghetti with scallops and um like lemon and um parsley, just very simple. It was delicious for my girlfriend. Put a tablecloth on the table, candles, everything, and I made um these like goat's cheese wrapped in um like grilled courgettes wrapped up with goat cheese, like.

• 33:05Speaker 03

  Oh, wow.

• 33:06Speaker 04

  It, it was, it was so special and exciting. Yeah.

• 33:09Speaker 03

  Wow, but no dessert this week?

• 33:10Speaker 04

  Yeah, I did make a dessert. This was, this was before I gave up the sugar.

• 33:13Speaker 03

  Okay, all right, fine.

• 33:14Speaker 04

  I made, she loves the chocolate, you know, melting in the middle chocolate.

• 33:17Speaker 03

  Yeah. Does, does she cook?

• 33:20Speaker 04

  Yeah, she cooks. Yeah, she cooks. But she's more like, I think how you, how you are.

• 33:24Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 33:24Speaker 04

  Where she needs a recipe, she needs to think about it, she needs to go out and get all the bits. Yeah. I thought that this, this table manners, I thought that I would have to cook for you.

• 33:33Speaker 03

  Did you?

• 33:34Speaker 04

  Yeah, I was like, I'm gonna cook for Jessie and Ellie.

• 33:36Speaker 03

  Oh, we would have done that.

• 33:37Speaker 04

  And then, but then, I'm, I'm glad that I didn't have to.

• 33:39Speaker 03

  And then we wouldn't have had a row.

• 33:41Speaker 04

  But like, I was thinking, all right, okay, okay, well then I've got to like, think, I've got to cook, got to cook for people. And then I was like.

• 33:47Speaker 03

  Oh, no, we cooked for you.

• 33:48Jessie Ware?

  So what, what were you gonna cook for us then? When you thought you were cooking for us, Kai?

• 33:52Speaker 04

  Well, that.

• 33:54Jessie Ware?

  Didn't get that far.

• 33:55Speaker 04

  Well, no, that day, I'd just made, for family actually, they'd all come round and I, I'd made from scratch chicken kev's.

• 34:03Speaker 03

  Bloody hell.

• 34:05Speaker 04

  Chicken Kiev, you know with the garlic butter inside.

• 34:07Jessie Ware?

  I haven't had a chicken Kiev in so long.

• 34:10Speaker 03

  How beautiful.

• 34:11Speaker 04

  It's come back. Nobody, nobody could not like it unless you don't eat meat or gluten or dairy.

• 34:17Jessie Ware?

  Was it good?

• 34:17Speaker 04

  It was incredible.

• 34:18Speaker 03

  How did you make sure that the butter stayed in the middle and didn't seep out?

• 34:22Speaker 04

  So you just, you, you cut like a kind of like crescent shape around, you, you fill it, you fill it and you seal it.

• 34:28Speaker 03

  How did you seal it with toothpicks?

• 34:31Speaker 04

  No, I just sealed it, just with my, with my fingers. And then because you do the, you know, the egg wash and the,

• 34:36Speaker 03

  The dipping, yeah.

• 34:37Speaker 04

  Flour and then the breadcrumbs.

• 34:39Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 34:39Speaker 04

  And by the time that's all happened, you've got like a, and they were absolutely massive.

• 34:44Speaker 03

  Were they delicious?

• 34:45Speaker 04

  Amazing.

• 34:46Speaker 03

  Very garlicky.

• 34:47Speaker 04

  Yeah, because the only time I've ever had them is, you know, oven, from the oven, from the supermarket. So it was like, it, it just, the whole process of it felt like, um.

• 34:57Speaker 03

  What did you serve with it?

• 34:59Speaker 04

  Uh, some like greens, some peas and some, and a potato salad.

• 35:04Speaker 03

  Oh, lovely.

• 35:04Speaker 04

  And, uh, we, it was lovely. It was amazing.

• 35:08Speaker 03

  Fantastic.

• 35:09Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 35:09Jessie Ware?

  Okay, so we have Easter Belfridge. Do you know Easter Belfridge?

• 35:13Speaker 04

  I don't.

• 35:14Jessie Ware?

  She's the most amazing chef. She was one of the, um, she used to work with Ottolenghi in the test kitchen. She did a cookbook with him. She's got two cookbooks out, Fuzia and Mescola, and always her recipes work. And I saw this on Instagram. She'd made it last weekend for brunch and I just thought it looked really good. It's a kind of tomatoey coconut milk, uh, scotch bonnet. Um, she kind of like a chaperone. But I'm a bit worried the eggs may be slightly overdone, but sorry, sue me.

• 35:40Speaker 04

  That's how I like them.

• 35:41Jessie Ware?

  Okay, great. And then we've got, um, sticky coconut rice.

• 35:45Speaker 04

  Oh my gosh.

• 35:46Jessie Ware?

  That's been baked. And then we've got like a nice zesty salad and then some sourdough.

• 35:52Speaker 03

  That's Jessie's made.

• 35:53Speaker 04

  Well done. Incredible work.

• 35:54Jessie Ware?

  Thank you.

• 35:55Speaker 04

  Congratulations.

• 35:56Jessie Ware?

  So I'm just gonna put some on your plate. Is that all right?

• 35:58Speaker 04

  Yeah, please do.

• 35:59Jessie Ware?

  Okay, great. Two eggs?

• 36:00Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 36:00Jessie Ware?

  Okay.

• 36:01Speaker 04

  Yeah. Okay, I'm hungry.

• 36:02Jessie Ware?

  Okay, good.

• 36:03Speaker 04

  It's the right thing to do when you're going to. Eat a meal cooked for you by someone of your skill.

• 36:09Jessie Ware?

  And then there's some like little limey um onions, but there's also other, I mean, I, you know, I hope your girlfriend doesn't mind snogging you with onion breath later, so.

• 36:17Speaker 04

  No, I think she'll, she'll be happy with it.

• 36:19Jessie Ware?

  Okay, fine. Well, we'll give her the cooking.

• 36:20Speaker 04

  Do you live together?

• 36:21Jessie Ware?

  We do. How did you meet?

• 36:24Speaker 04

  We met at a barbecue, a friend's barbecue that neither of us wanted to go to. We'd both been going through some pretty heavy stuff in our lives. We did not wanna go. And we went and we met and uh.

• 36:36Jessie Ware?

  Thank you.

• 36:37Speaker 04

  We, we, then after we met.

• 36:40Jessie Ware?

  Hmm.

• 36:40Speaker 04

  A friend of mine said, this lovely girl wants you to have her number. And a friend of hers said, Kai wants your number, but neither of us had said that to each other. But then I was like, oh, oh, well, she.

• 36:51Jessie Ware?

  Oh, my god.

• 36:52Speaker 04

  She's in, like, she wants me to have her number. So we went on a date, but neither of us had said that.

• 36:56Jessie Ware?

  Oh, my god. Why? Because you were kind of too scared to?

• 37:00Speaker 04

  I thought she was like totally out of my league. I didn't think there was any, you know. And then we went on this date.

• 37:05Jessie Ware?

  Um, and you hold it.

• 37:06Speaker 04

  No, you go ahead now.

• 37:06Jessie Ware?

  Yeah, okay. Do you need any of the extra bit?

• 37:10Speaker 04

  Then we went on this date and we just walked around all night. Suddenly it was five in the morning. We were having. A pot of tea and pancakes in an all night diner. We hadn't stopped talking. The next day I had to go away. For work and I just couldn't wait to talk to her again. We'd just been talking all night. I just couldn't wait to talk to her again. And that, that was like, almost, just, just under a year ago. And so it's been, you know, it's like, came out of nowhere, did not want to be in love with anybody. Uh, and then there she was.

• 37:37Jessie Ware?

  Do you think you might get married?

• 37:39Speaker 04

  I think we're already married, the way it's going.

• 37:43Speaker 04

  Yeah, she's wonderful. Her name's Grace. There you go.

• 37:45Jessie Ware?

  Does it feel very different putting a record out to putting a, a book out?

• 37:50Speaker 04

  Yeah, the, it, the thing about a novel is. It's, for one thing, it's just, um, it's a, it's a bigger undertaking.

• 37:59Jessie Ware?

  Mm hmm.

• 38:00Speaker 04

  It's also much less collaborative, like when you're down there.

• 38:03Jessie Ware?

  Mm, mm.

• 38:04Speaker 04

  You're, you're alone with these characters. Music is, you're, you're doing it with people, that you're.

• 38:11Speaker 04

  Somewhere on every step of the journey, there's a kind of, you know, you're doing it.

• 38:17Jessie Ware?

  Yeah.

• 38:18Speaker 04

  Together.

• 38:19Jessie Ware?

  Mm hmm.

• 38:20Speaker 04

  But with a novel, it's so much more.

• 38:25Speaker 04

  You're kind of with all of, you're in this imaginary world that you have to build from scratch and it has to be as real as this world is. And so by the time you get to putting it out, you've already done. Like with, with an album, putting out the album is the beginning of the live life of the album. But with a novel, the novel being released is the end of my time with it. It's, it's like actually the beginning of the life of these characters out there.

• 38:47Jessie Ware?

  So you're handing it over to the world.

• 38:48Speaker 04

  Which is beautiful, but not with a, with an album, you finish it and then it has this life where you bring it to life on stage every night. So the, the putting it out is also linked to the

• 39:02Speaker 04

  the fact that it's going to live in a different way soon. But with the novel, it's like, yeah, it's.

• 39:08Jessie Ware?

  Are you sad about that? Are you ready to let go of these characters?

• 39:12Speaker 04

  I feel so close to them. I love them so much. The thing that I feel is I'm, I, I worry about how they will be treated in the world. Cause I love them so much. That's my feeling. I'm like, I hope they're all right, you know? But I don't feel any sadness. I feel gratitude for having got through something that for me was as major as writing this novel and as much as I'm somebody who loves to write and lives for it, the, the undertaking of something like a novel is, it's a big labour. And you have to really put a lot into it, or I do anyway, maybe other novelists.

• 39:45Jessie Ware?

  How long did it take you to write?

• 39:47Speaker 04

  I was writing solidly for three years, like solidly, coming off stage and, and then going into my studio. I'd finish a tour. And I would have two weeks to turn a some, a draft around. It was like, I was doing, I was doing kind of like fifteen hour days at my desk when I had to. I was in the airport making a moving desk out of pulling up the suitcase handle and writing on the laptop as I went around. I, I was dreaming their dreams. I was, I didn't know which world was the real world, like Edge Cliff, the fictional town, the novel set or backstage at a festival in, do you know what I mean, Neverlands.

• 40:24Jessie Ware?

  You've had such success. Well, I mean, your recent record, which by the way, like the, the videos and every, you look so the songs as well, like that, that, I mean.

• 40:37Speaker 03

  It's really powerful and it feels, it like slaps you in the face in kind of the best way possible.

• 40:43Speaker 04

  It was an amazing experience, like making this record and putting it out. I've never found things like videos enjoyable or easy or, but since transition, I feel amazing, feel amazing. I felt the, Juliette Lath, who was the producer of those videos, made it so that all of the people on the set were all queer. It was just like all queer and trans people. It just felt like the best day of my life. Everyone was just like, I didn't feel like, um, like awful or please don't look at me or I'm so sorry that I'm, I'm so sorry. When you go into the like makeup person's chair and before it was just like, I'm so sorry that I, you've done all this training and you're so good at makeup and hair and I'm just sitting here and I can't bear, I can't bear my own skin and I, you know, you're sitting there and you just feel awful.

• 41:27Speaker 04

  You feel so bad for everybody because you can't do the thing that you're meant to do, which is stand up and be yourself. But then with these videos and this record, I just, the relief that I feel to be able to enjoy this thing that I adore doing is so, it's, I feel so much gratitude for it. Yeah, amazing. The whole experience has been amazing.

• 41:48Speaker 03

  Do you feel you have a huge responsibility towards the trans community?

• 41:56Speaker 04

  Um, no.

• 41:57Speaker 03

  No.

• 41:58Speaker 04

  But I do love my community.

• 42:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 42:01Speaker 04

  I love them. I want to be there for them. I love us. I'm here. But I think responsibility is kind of a heavy word.

• 42:09Speaker 03

  Yeah, it is a heavy word. I wondered if it felt heavy.

• 42:12Speaker 04

  No, I just, I'm here. I'm here for us. I love us. Um.

• 42:18Speaker 04

  But it doesn't feel like, it's just normal. It's just, I'm just, this is just normal and in the same.

• 42:23Speaker 03

  I wondered if you were asked to speak at things like, um, it's, what's the not a base and.

• 42:31Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, if I get asked to do something, you will, then I'll go and do it because it's important. But at the same time, even though, for example, the characters in this novel are, you know, there's a trans character in it. There's two trans characters in it, you know, but I, that's not the point of these characters.

• 42:49Speaker 03

  No.

• 42:49Speaker 04

  In the same way, there's an addict in it, but that's not the point of her. That's just what she's going through. Like, these are people. And I really hope that somewhere outside all the kind of heat that unfortunately gets projected onto the conversation of.

• 43:03Speaker 04

  Bodies and gender, um, is this, hopefully, um, a realisation that this is just, this is just people, this is just people. And I wanted to write a novel, hopefully, that, um, will speak to people who have direct lived experience that's in common with the characters, but also that have nothing in common with these characters, but can still feel themselves connected and seen by the, by the book. Because I think about the times in my life when I've felt so empty or numb or devoid of connection and I've found my way back to life through usually fiction. I'll be reading something or listening to an album and it brings me back into life. And usually it's got, it's nothing to do with who I am or where I'm from or the environment I'm in.

• 43:47Speaker 04

  It could be some book from the forties written in New York or, you know, but something about the character, their journey connects me more forcefully to my own. And that, that's the power, I think, if we, if we're, if we tell stories, we have this very advanced bit of machinery at our disposal. It's kind of an empathy machine, isn't it, a novel? It's like this thing that we plug into it and it will extend your empathic ability because you're going into story. And as you're able to recognise things in your own self that you might not have time, inclination, possibility to recognise because your life is too intense or busy,

• 44:31Speaker 04

  it also kind of broadens that bandwidth, I hope, to recognise in others the same universal selfhood that we all carry around.

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• 45:53Jessie Ware?

  Last supper.

• 45:54Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 45:55Jessie Ware?

  Starter main per drink of choice.

• 45:57Speaker 04

  Um, chicken soup.

• 45:59Jessie Ware?

  Okay.

• 46:00Speaker 04

  Of course.

• 46:01Jessie Ware?

  Um. You having it with loxion or matzo balls?

• 46:04Speaker 04

  Matzo balls, yeah.

• 46:06Speaker 03

  I'll definitely make you some.

• 46:07Speaker 04

  Thank you so much. It would mean the world to me. It's like, honestly, it's like, it's something. That is my favorite food, to be honest.

• 46:14Speaker 03

  And I promise you, my matzo balls are like clouds.

• 46:17Speaker 04

  Yeah, I believe that. I really believe that. Since my grandmother died, I haven't had her matzo balls soup. But my uncle makes a really good chicken soup. And actually, he bought, I threw a big party for my dad. My dad had a big birthday and threw a big party in my house. And my uncle turned up with two big, like, Tupperwares of chicken soup for me to put in the freezer. And then I went on tour and I came back and I kind of forgot and they were in there. There was nothing.

• 46:41Speaker 03

  And you got them.

• 46:42Speaker 04

  And I was ill, you know, you get ill when you come home and it was there. That my uncle's chicken soup, Uncle Roger, it was like, oh. It really does something. I've been in like.

• 46:53Speaker 03

  It's good for the soul.

• 46:54Speaker 04

  It's so good. So I'd have that, maybe, yeah, I'd have that for my starter. Um, what would I have for my main course? I really like, like, oh, oh, wait, actually, well, I really like fish, I was gonna say, I love, like, because I ca- I don't cook it. When you go to a restaurant and you co- and you eat fish and it's like done in these amazing ways and. I always find that really delicious, but I went out for a roast the other day, oh, yeah, I'll do this. I went out for a roast dinner the other day with some friends and it was like, uh, it's like an Italian family that own a pub. It's in Greenwich, you should go there, it's called, it's called the Prince of Greenwich.

• 47:25Jessie Ware?

  Okay.

• 47:26Speaker 04

  It's really nice, there's like stuff all over the walls, there's a jazz band playing, but in there, they do this like roast beef in. Bolognese sauce on potatoes with salad on a big plate.

• 47:38Jessie Ware?

  Wow, and it's delicious.

• 47:39Speaker 04

  It's delicious.

• 47:40Jessie Ware?

  Wow, that would, maybe my kids would have a roast if there was Bolognese in it.

• 47:44Speaker 04

  It was like.

• 47:45Speaker 03

  With your, with your pudding?

• 47:46Speaker 04

  No, it's just the roast beef, like, kind of quite thin sliced, no, it's all with roast potatoes.

• 47:51Jessie Ware?

  Oh.

• 47:51Speaker 03

  How unusual.

• 47:52Speaker 04

  It was like, banging, banging, absolutely.

• 47:56Jessie Ware?

  The prince.

• 47:56Speaker 04

  The prince of Greenwich.

• 47:57Jessie Ware?

  Okay, I'm going.

• 47:58Speaker 04

  Yeah. But that's what I say today, on another day I may, I may say something different.

• 48:02Jessie Ware?

  I said baked potato one day, so like, I mean.

• 48:04Speaker 04

  Can't go wrong.

• 48:05Jessie Ware?

  No, but now I'm like, wow, people really think, cause I was like, you can do like four different sizes, like four seasons, you know, in the qu- quarters, and I thought that was quite good. However, now I'm like, I don't know if that would still be mine, so I understand that this is your day today.

• 48:18Speaker 04

  Just today, like, a different day, something else.

• 48:20Jessie Ware?

  Pudding, have you got a sweet tooth?

• 48:21Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 48:22Jessie Ware?

  Yes.

• 48:22Speaker 04

  Like wildly, yeah, my favourite, like pudding is sticky toffee pudding, right, gotta be. But then what I really love is baklava.

• 48:30Speaker 03

  I love baklava.

• 48:32Speaker 04

  And, um, one, on a birthday, it was one of my birthdays and, um, I was on tour. And everybody from the band, I don't know where they got it from, they got me a baklava cake. Like, I ca- I have, I'm, I dream about it, I don't know where it came from, I think it was like an Eid cake that someone had made, like, and it was like baklava. Like sponge cake icing, oh, I'd have that, I think.

• 48:55Speaker 03

  Oh, fabulous.

• 48:56Speaker 04

  Um, and maybe I'd have a trio of desserts, like, you've got your baked potatoes.

• 48:59Speaker 03

  Do you, do you drink?

• 49:01Speaker 04

  I do, yeah.

• 49:01Speaker 03

  What do you like?

• 49:02Speaker 04

  I like a, I like a campari spritz, you know.

• 49:05Speaker 03

  Oh, rather than aperol?

• 49:07Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 49:07Speaker 03

  Why?

• 49:08Speaker 04

  I like the bitterness.

• 49:09Jessie Ware?

  Yeah, me too, do you put a lot of, um, orange in there or not?

• 49:11Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, if I haven't.

• 49:14Jessie Ware?

  I didn't even offer you a drink, are you not drinking at the moment? Okay, fine.

• 49:17Speaker 04

  Forty days, can't wait.

• 49:19Jessie Ware?

  Well done.

• 49:20Speaker 04

  But then the thing is, I don't even wanna go, it's actually nicer when you, when you take the choice away from yourself, rather than. Uh if you can't, then you just can't, you get on with it. Whereas if you can, it's always nice. I mean, when's it not nice? But I like drinking a really lovely pint of beer after a walk to a pub.

• 49:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 49:38Speaker 04

  Preferably by the sea. I love it.

• 49:41Speaker 03

  And what crisps are you getting with that?

• 49:44Speaker 04

  I'm getting cheese and onion crisps.

• 49:45Speaker 03

  Me too. It's the best.

• 49:47Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 49:47Speaker 03

  Jesse likes salt and vinegar.

• 49:49Speaker 04

  And it's a, I think, I get that, but I just, it's not my, it's just not my party. It's too sharp.

• 49:54Speaker 03

  You, you, you come across um as quite a reserved, shy person. So I'm so interested. How you perform.

• 50:04Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 50:04Speaker 03

  And what you have to, how you gird yourself up to perform, whether that's, or, or am I wrong?

• 50:10Speaker 04

  No, I think when I'm in a performance space, it's the most authentic. Expression of being that I know. And all of the things that happen when you're in this world. They don't, they're, they're not with you in that world. You know, you can go to the place which is the true, for me, the true. Place where the music comes from, where the lyrics come from, where the writing comes from, the connective place. Where you can suddenly disappear from being in a room in front of lots of people and actually be with them. Like in, somehow there's an internal place that exists outside of the external place, which you can all access sometimes if the. If the flow is right, I don't know how to explain it. There's something that happens to me on stage.

• 50:54Speaker 04

  That takes me away, but also brings me closer to.

• 50:58Speaker 03

  Who you are.

• 50:59Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's like an arrival as much as it is an, an escape, you know? And I don't really know it anywhere else, but I know it very well in music and in, and in writing and in lyricism. And I know it in collaboration with other people. I know what it feels like to go there with other players or to go there with a crowd. And I know what it feels like to not get there and want to go there and not know why you're not going there tonight, you know, it's. And there's a, I have a lot of performances under my belt. I've been doing this for, you know, twenty years, more, twenty five years, yeah, getting up and wrapping my head off. So I've done it in all kinds of different environments, like drum and bass raves, or big squat parties

• 51:40Speaker 04

  full of punk bands, or poetry recitals in libraries, or in very posh grand concert halls, or like just in front of, you know, an audience of one in the recording studio when I was making the album before last. I did the whole album in one take to one person, uh, three times in a day to three different generations. Like, you know, I think about this stuff really a lot about how, who's listening affects the communication of what it is that you're delivering. So the way I feel about performance, I think about it more than I think about like how I actually communicate or what conversations are like. You know, it's this very special place that

• 52:19Speaker 04

  gives me so much. So I, it also takes a lot out of us, as you know, like, um, it can be terrifying. You can feel like just before going on tour that you don't have it in you. How are you gonna find it? You could be on the floor, useless. You could be a shell, and suddenly you're on stage and you're mighty and you're fine. But the people that share your actual life are the ones that see the, you know, the impact.

• 52:41Speaker 03

  Well, I wondered about that. Is it different performing when you don't, when none of your family there or your mates are there? Do you find it impacts on your performance? That it's better when you're, it's completely anonymous situation, or when you've got support, or your, your dad's in the background? Yeah.

• 53:02Speaker 04

  Well, I had this amazing experience on the last tour, where my sister's kids, who are um, twelve and ten now, were kind of old enough to come and watch the gig. So I was, every single thing that I was saying, I was speaking.

• 53:21Speaker 03

  To them.

• 53:22Speaker 04

  To these kids, you know, and they were up in the balcony up there. And I could just, everything felt so incredibly important that I communicated.

• 53:32Speaker 04

  Not just what I was saying, but how I got to the place where I could say this and actually having them there illuminated that performance in a way that I've. All of the people I was on tour with were like, what just happened tonight? Like, where, where did that come from? And it came from speaking directly to somebody that I know and love. And I care about, I care about how it hits them. And also I'm try, you know, I'm wondering how it feels for them to see me, like see Uncle K up there, like in that mode. You know, so I feel.

• 54:04Speaker 04

  If you're too aware of what somebody might be thinking, whether it's a family member or, or the audience. If you have an expectation of what their expectation is, then it becomes very difficult to get out of your head and get into the reality and get out of your own way. Sometimes I can, I can be kind of paralyzed by that sensation of like, oh, are they all right? Am I, you know, what do they want? You could, I can have that feeling because there's like cross audiences that come to see my stuff. So. Uh, like the most um, kind of visual example of when that happens is brand new ancients that we were talking about earlier. Was this long play that was published as a poem. And I, I was doing my kind of first ever American tour. And um, these ladies had been reading it in their church reading group and they'd come in a.

• 54:50Speaker 04

  Little minibus, they'd bought their own chairs. There were ladies of a certain age that needed to have their own chairs. And I was there touring my first record, which was like a heavy electronic like rap album. Turned up in America like I'm gonna, I'm gonna blow up. Everyone's gonna be there. I'm gonna meet my heroes. Then we turn up in this town. And we go out on stage and there's just these like ten very sweet ladies. Who've been reading my book in their church reading group with their own chairs in a line. And then at the back, there's a few like music fans. Being like, what is this? What have I, what have I come to see? And then I'm just like the. You know, I'm on stage with two drummers, like a synth player, and we're playing really gnarly music, but these people were coming to see the poet from England who'd written about

• 55:32Speaker 04

  the classical mythology. So what I'm saying is, there's, if I'm too aware of what people want, it can throw me off. So I've just got to go and do my thing.

• 55:41Jessie Ware?

  Did you meet them after?

• 55:42Speaker 04

  Yeah, I met them after, but I was like.

• 55:44Jessie Ware?

  Did you, did you feel apologetic?

• 55:46Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 55:46Jessie Ware?

  Oh.

• 55:47Speaker 04

  I was like, is it too loud for them? Why? They're just sitting there, just like, nodding their heads. It was, they were very.

• 55:52Jessie Ware?

  Do you think they enjoyed it?

• 55:53Speaker 04

  I've got no idea. I was like, I didn't enjoy it. I was just like, what am I doing?

• 55:57Speaker 03

  Doesn't matter.

• 55:58Speaker 04

  You know, like, I thought, like, it just, it shattered the illusion of what it would mean to break it in America. I can tell you that.

• 56:04Jessie Ware?

  Yeah.

• 56:05Speaker 04

  It was like, okay, this is my niche, you know?

• 56:09Jessie Ware?

  I love it. Before we let you go.

• 56:11Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 56:11Jessie Ware?

  Can you give us a nostalgic taste that can transport you back somewhere?

• 56:14Speaker 04

  Yeah. Um, I love mint choc chip ice cream.

• 56:20Jessie Ware?

  Yeah.

• 56:20Speaker 04

  And that makes me think about this, um, uh, there was like an ice cream parlor on the seafront. I think it's still there in Brighton. And I remember going there as kids. I just remember going to get a, you'd have to walk all the way, all the way up from like the pier or something. You'd have to walk and walk and walk. It was, it just felt like so long. But then when you got there, you could have ice cream.

• 56:44Speaker 03

  In a cone or a tub?

• 56:45Speaker 04

  In a cone, always a cone.

• 56:46Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 56:47Speaker 04

  But now if I went there, I would be getting like salted caramel or like, you know, one of these delicious. But at the time.

• 56:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, mint choc chip.

• 56:54Speaker 04

  Mint choc chip. But also the smell of chicken soup, I imagine. That, that kind of oniony.

• 56:58Speaker 03

  When you walk into the house and it's been cooking.

• 57:00Speaker 04

  Do you put saffron in it?

• 57:01Speaker 03

  No, I don't.

• 57:03Speaker 04

  My dad put saffron.

• 57:04Speaker 03

  Well, you see, I love, I would do it for the colour, but I'm not very keen on the taste of saffron because it's a bit medicinal.

• 57:10Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 57:10Jessie Ware?

  Um, Kai, thank you so much for doing this. You're so wonderful and talented and good luck with the beautiful novel that you've created and these amazing characters.

• 57:21Speaker 04

  I hope it finds its way to people. Thanks for giving me the time.

• 57:38Jessie Ware?

  Kai Tempest, one of the most beautiful, interesting, calming, thoughtful guests I think we've ever had.

• 57:47Speaker 03

  He's just a delight, a very kind, empathetic person who makes things come alive, really, when he talks.

• 57:54Jessie Ware?

  He made us not fall out again.

• 57:56Speaker 03

  Interesting, he was on Lent and didn't even want a dessert.

• 57:59Jessie Ware?

  I mean, that was a bit of a bummer, I'm not gonna lie, when we had fallen out over the cookie. And then I burnt the cookie, so maybe that's karmically...

• 58:10Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 58:11Jessie Ware?

  There you go. I found...

• 58:13Speaker 03

  Moral of the tale, don't shout at your mum.

• 58:15Jessie Ware?

  Moral of the tale, make the pudding.

• 58:19Speaker 03

  Well, he wouldn't have eaten that, I go, if I'd made it. So, there you go.

• 58:24Jessie Ware?

  Did we learn anything? No. Kai Tempest's book, Having Spent Life Seeking, is out on the 30th of April. It's really beautiful, heartbreaking, raw, and yes, buy the book, but I would also say maybe listen to it on audiobook because he reads it so beautifully. What did you think of the dinner, Mum?

• 58:44Speaker 03

  It was delicious.

• 58:45Jessie Ware?

  It was really nice, wasn't it?

• 58:47Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 58:47Jessie Ware?

  Good brunch thing.

• 58:48Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's a very good brunch thing.

• 58:50Jessie Ware?

  Mr Belbridge is just so good. And that salad was really yummy, too.

• 58:54Speaker 03

  She's very clever.

• 58:55Jessie Ware?

  She's brilliant.

• 58:56Speaker 03

  Thanks for listening and watching.

• 58:58Jessie Ware?

  Please subscribe. We'll see you next week for more Table Mum.

• 1:00:02Speaker 05

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