Everybody Down

There's a strong, vibrant formal tradition in hip hop: the story rhyme. Rather than the bragging and boasting of many raps, in a story rhyme the MC presents a narrative - a street update of Ovid or Homer if you want to get hifalutin about it. Traced back by some to "The Message" by Melle Mel, few would dispute that it reached some sort of a peak with Slick Rick's first album, and was carried forward by the likes of Biggie and Eminem. It also had a profound influence on rap in the UK, with artists like Roots Manuva using the form to represent themselves and their city in a myriad of new ways.

Kate Tempest is best known as a poet, perhaps a performance poet or a spoken word artist. She has a novel coming out next year with Bloomsbury. But ask Kate what she is and she's more likely to say she's a rapper who writes. That's her first love. Listen to her voice, her cadences, the accent, and you'll hear more of Skinnyman than Seamus Heaney, a veteran of Deal Real's legendary Friday night rap battles but also someone at home doing a book reading at Foyles. Kate Tempest understands the story rhyme, loves it. Which is why "Everybody Down" is something like a "novel rhyme" - twelve 'chapters' telling one long, complex story, a unique, one-off project, almost unique in the history of the form.