Let Them Eat Chaos
Ebook
Overview
Kae Tempest’s powerful narrative poem--set to music on their album of the same title, shortlisted for the Mercury Music Prize--illuminates the lives of a single city street, creating an electric, humming human symphony.
Let Them Eat Chaos, Kae Tempest’s long poem written for live performance and heard on the album release of the same name, is both a powerful sermon and a moving play for voices. Seven neighbors inhabit the same London street, but are all unknown to each other. The clock freezes in the small hours, and one by one we see directly into their lives: lives that are damaged, disenfranchised, lonely, broken, addicted, and all, apparently, without hope. Then a great storm breaks over London, and brings them out into the night to face each other, giving them one last chance to connect.
Tempest argues that our alienation from one another has bred a terrible indifference to our own fate, but counters this with a plea to challenge the forces of greed which have conspired to divide us, and mend the broken home of our own planet while we still have time. Let Them Eat Chaos is a cri de cœur, a call to action, and a powerful poetic statement.
Kae Tempest’s powerful narrative poem--set to music on their album of the same title, shortlisted for the Mercury Music Prize--illuminates the lives of a single city street, creating an electric, humming human symphony.
A rising star: Winner of the Ted Hughes Prize for poetry, shortlisted for the Mercury Prize for her music, with fans from Jay-Z to Jeanette Winterson. She’s working with legendary music producer Rick Rubin for future albums. An early single from LET THEM EAT CHAOS, “Europe Is Lost,” has been enthusiastically received (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOXXdYtZSbQ).
Major U.S. album tour: Publication will coincide with album release (Sept 16th, TBC), and Kate’s world tour will include several U.S. cities (September 23 to October 15, 2016, TBC)
This feels a lot like Patti Smith here, in massive wordplay. The sorrows, loss, and rage are the same; and you have to admire the inner beauty coming to surface in serious ways; and more than that, applaud a young artist on a marvelous occasion for driving a dream to the fullest extent just for the flight of it.
Tempest has an ability to write about big, metaphysical subjects in the most vernacular language.
Capture[s] a yearning for something better that resonates in this early 21st-century political climate.
Tempest is brilliant at painting pictures with words, drawing compelling characters that pull you into their lives.
Kae Tempest’s skill as a wordsmith will continue to win [them] awards and critical praise, but it’s [their] passion as a performer that can carry [them] to a larger audience . . . There are moments in musical history when you can practically feel culture forces coalescing around a voice and a talent on the cusp of a massive breakthrough . . . If [Tempest] continues operating at the stratospheric level on display these last few weeks, [they] should probably get used to it.
- Title: Let Them Eat Chaos
- Author: Kae Tempest
- Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
- Print Publication Date: 2017
- Logos Release Date: 2024
- Pages: 80
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Ebook
- ISBNs: 9781632868787, 9781632868770, 1632868776, 1632868784
- Resource ID: LLS:9781632868787
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2025-04-22T15:28:20Z
Kae Tempest is a poet. They are also a writer, a lyricist, a performer and a recording artist. They have published plays, poems, a novel, a book length non-fiction essay, released albums and toured extensively, selling out shows from Reykjavik to Rio de Janeiro. They received Mercury Music Prize nominations for both of the albums Everybody Down and Let Them Eat Chaos and two Ivor Novello nominations for their song-writing on The Book of Traps and Lessons. They were named a Next Generation Poet in 2014, a once in a decade accolade. They received the Ted Hughes Award for their longform narrative poem Brand New Ancients and the Leone D'Argento at the Venice Teatro Biennale for their work as a playwright. Their books have been translated into eleven languages and published to critical acclaim around the world. They were born in London in 1985 where they still live. They hope to continue putting words together for a long time.