ISSUE #1361 | 03-09 JUNE 2019

Also inside The space women of Kyrgyzstan Making anger count I’m partly to blame for Boris Johnson

A HAND UP, NOT A HANDOUT | EVERY MONDAY £2.50 Hail the gamechangers! Kate Tempest & Rick Rubin Songs from the streets to Shangri-La Exclusive interview interview. Kate Tempest and Rick Rubin shot for The Big Issue by Anabel DFlux at Shangri-La Studios, Malibu, ate Tempest and Rick Rubin could hardly on May 1, 2019 inhabit more contrasting worlds – she’s the poet-rapper voice of unloved urban London, he’s the zenful Malibu superproducer to the stars. Yet here they stand having worked on a gamechanging album together. Malcolm Jack went to their Garden of Eden to fnd out what went on

Visit the legendary Shangri-La studios outside of LA and the question isn’t so much how it has inspired countless musicians to make so many great records over the decades, but rather why any would have willingly returned home. KThe 400 square-metre ranch rests on gently sloping hillside just off the Pacifc Coast Highway, above the diamond sands and surf of Zuma Beach and below the Santa Monica Mountains. At its centre is an unassuming bungalow, the interior of which is painted bright white, minimally furnished and impeccably tidy. In the front room gallons of spring morning sunlight pours in across a pool table and a grand piano, through French doors that open out on to a lush green garden. Fiery orange and black monarch butterflies flutter among the fruit trees. The vast blue ocean glints on the horizon, its mighty roar reduced to a meditative hum from this remove. Everyone from Keith Richards, Crosby, Stills & Nash and U2 to Metallica, Lady Gaga and Ed Sheeran have come to soak up the idyllic vibes at Shangri-La in the famous residential studio’s various lives stretching back to the 1970s. Original owners The Band are said to have rehearsed here for Martin Scorsese’s seminal concert flm The Last Waltz. Adele called it “the coolest place on earth to record an album,” specifcally 2011’s 31 million-selling 21, while Kanye West and Kim Kardashian for a time made the house their enigmatically Instagrammed hideout. So crammed is the ranch with rock’n’roll history that I literally bang IN my head on it, entering the low doorway of Bob Dylan’s broken-down and rusted former tour bus, which had lain abandoned in the car park for years until Shangri-La’s current owner Rick Rubin arrived. He bought the dilapidated property and all that lay within its grounds in 2011, saving it from the unsympathetic clutches of developers. Dylan’s old banger has been comfly repurposed as a writing room, which today proffers shade from the hot midday sun as I settle down among the cushioned interior for a chat with one of the latest stars to make Shangri-La her creative arcadia. SEARCH “I’d never seen anything like it, even just thinking about it makes my heart pound,” enthuses Kate Tempest, grasping for words to remember frst arriving here in 2015. “It was just insane. You know, the Pacifc Ocean, the gardens, the trees.” Looking relaxed in a pair of K-Swiss tracksuit bottoms and Fred Perry polo shirt, the Brockley-raised spoken-word artist, poet, rapper, author and playwright with the broad south-east London accent does not seems exactly in her natural habitat at Shangri-La. Born Kate Esther Calvert, the youngest of fve children raised in Brockley by a mother who worked as a teacher and a father who worked in construction then OF became a lawyer, Tempest frst started performing her own verses aged 16 at a small hip-hop store on Carnaby Street. She would write plays and had a poetry collection published before she released her debut album Everybody Down in 2014, signalling the boundary-blurring creative’s auspicious arrival in the music world. From poetry slams to huge crowds at Glastonbury by way of house parties, underground raves, literature festivals, political demonstrations and the Royal Shakespeare Company, her star has risen by a uniquely circuitous route. Yet she’s built her reputation through gritty urban SHANGRI-LA > 20 | BIGISSUE.COM 03-09 JUNE2019 03-09 JUNE 2019 BIGISSUE.COM | 21 on which affairs of the Monica, he’s a picture of Californian health. The three of works in progresses. And he said, ‘OK, I’m going to go home. heart push to the fore us assemble at some patio furniture and Rubin – a man I know what I need to do now.’" RICK’S Caravan of love through evocative lines like to whom, for all his reported $250m worth, socks seem “It was surreal, you know,” Tempest jumps in, “when Jay-Z GREATEST Dylan’s former van and the site ‘I saw her cross the floor like complete anathema – props his bare feet up on the table came into the caravan and listened to our songs and said, of Jay-Z’s musical epiphany a frework exploding in edge. Where Eno has his Oblique Strategies and Phil Spector ‘I’m going to go home and do some writing.’ HITS slow motion’. waved a gun around, Rubin’s production philosophy is that “And then we had a really interesting conversation about His life in music “I just spent a year bit more subtle: tuning his ear and searching for clues, his writing and where he was and the next thing that he basically living in the as if piecing together a complex cosmic puzzle from the released was this record where he was really doing new 1986 mountains between France frequencies of the universe. He peppers our conversation things with his lyrics [2017’s 4:44].” Beastie Boys – and Spain with my partner, with phrases that could be the teachings of some kind of Slaves to the Spotify algorithm who rarely see much Licensed to Ill and that was the frst time musical spirit guide. “In free poetry, the language is the king,” money from their work, do artists today have Rubin’s The Beasties’ I’d ever left south-east he muses at one point. “So much of this is not intellectual, sympathies in their struggles to build a career? “I’d say it debut became the London,” Tempest says, it really is more heart-based, feeling-based,” he cogitates might be easier to at least be heard now than ever before, frst rap album hinting at the reasons on another occasion. Tempest nods along approvingly, but it may be harder to affect the culture in a way that used to top the US Billboard chart, behind a shift in focus in her absorbed in her mentor’s wisdom. to be possible,” he says. “There was a time when a big release and frmly put its producer on poetry. “South-east London is not massive. I’ve lived all over it, What did Rubin see as his role in the making of The Book would change the culture. It feels like that doesn’t happen.” the map and never anywhere else. Thirty-three years of life, apart from I of Traps and Lessons? “It was just a vision for this free, poetic “It feels almost like an album is a dated idea,” he states just spent a year living in the middle of fucking nowhere in the vocal to be able to work in a hip-hop environment without later – a slightly surprising admission from someone who 1988 foothills of the Pyrenees. That’s only in France. And I still felt I it becoming a traditional hip-hop record,” he replies, crisply. has built his life around making albums. He’s confdent that Public Enemy was too far from home.” “That was pretty much the abstract dream.” there will always be a role for producers, however, even as – It Takes Brown-Eyed Man – a track Rubin rated so highly he invited Rubin was, he remembers, “very moved” by that artists increasingly pivot away from lavish studios such as a Nation of Beastie Boy Mike D over for a listen (“just crazy,” Tempest frst exposure he had to Tempest’s poetry on US TV, Shangri-La towards more low-budget DIY practices. Millions to Hold remembers, shaking her head in disbelief) – rages and despairs and immediately felt compelled to reach out. “I saw the “I think the nature of music tends to be collaborative,” he Us Back at institutional racial violence. One of just a handful of songs connections to rap,” he explains. “I didn’t know that you had says. “And having someone who wants it to be as good as it Rubin was executive producer on the record set to a drum beat, the soulful Firesmoke lavishes ever done rap at that time. I just thought you were purely a could be, but doesn’t have any of the emotional attachment on arguably the greatest and in a lover’s touch (‘Your body is home to rare gods / I kneel at poet, a traditional poet, and there was tremendous energy to the material itself, on the outside, is really helpful. The most influential hip-hop their temple’), while People’s Faces, hung loosely around a and passion in the performance of the poetry. And I thought, same is true for people who write books, having an editor. album ever recorded rousing piano line, closes on a hopeful note that simple human ‘Wow, if that was brought into the musical world, that would While you might not always like what the editor says, it helps empathy may yet deliver us from these divisive, Brexit-y times. be a very powerful thing.’ It was just seeing something in the process to have a trusted source to bounce material off.” 1991 “The lyrics have been set free,” says Tempest proudly, able Kate. And trying to protect it, this magic thing that you do.” Does Rubin feel as inspired by music today as he did 20 Red Hot Chili now with the beneft of hindsight to admire a logic that wasn’t It’s not often that Rubin feels compelled to intervene in or 30 years ago? “Absolutely,” he reacts, unhesitatingly. Is the Peppers – Photos: Anabel DFlux, Deliquesce-Flux Photography always easy to appreciate in the thick of the album’s making. an artist’s career like that. “So when it does happen, it’s really day when he doesn’t feel as excited by music the day when Blood Sugar Famously, Rubin, a completely untrained producer, is much less exciting,” he says. “I can’t even remember [the last time that he’ll retire? “I don’t know,” he smiles. “It hasn’t happened yet.” Sex Magik concerned with the perfect positioning of a microphone or the feeling hit],” Rubin says. “But one of the frst times would be And with that, he says his polite farewells and levitates – This 12-million sagas inspired by the grime, graft and grift of the Big Smoke, not the manicured gardens precise tuning of a guitar than he is in intuitively establishing Public Enemy.” OK, ambles – across the grass into the house, urging Tempest seller featuring Under The and sea views of sun-kissed California. Her words whether written, rapped or spoken don’t an uncluttered and truthful relationship between an artist and He thinks The Book of Traps and Lessons’ potential to to join him so he can play her some new music that he’s been Bridge made superstars of recline in paradise, but rail against social injustice, racism, corruption, celeb culture and their material. influence other rappers is considerable. “In some ways it’s enjoying. I’m left in the gardens awaiting my lift back in to the socks-on-cocks LA punk- the slow death of common compassion in rubbish modern life. “He doesn’t touch the equipment,” Tempest says, “he just like the rules of rap are fairly strict,” he elaborates. “And if a LA, peacefully alone to the sun, the ocean, the butterflies funkers Nonetheless, Tempest’s ascent to working with one of the biggest music producers of listens. He’s not in the whole day, he comes in for like an hour. rapper gets to hear this, it just could really open the mind of and the frequencies of the universe, reflecting agreeingly all time – indeed, she’s the frst female British solo artist since Adele to record at At frst, we were like, ‘We’ve come all the way here, where is he?’ what’s possible and in different directions.” on Tempest’s earlier to-the-point assessment of coming to Shangri-La – shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. At 33 she already has a pair of Now I see what’s beautiful about it is that he knows what he Does that mean he’ll be pushing copies of it to the Kanyes Shangri-La: “this is the shit you dream about.” 2002 Mercury Prize nominations under her belt for each of her two albums to date – most needs to do to be most useful to you, which is that he comes in, and Kendricks? “Whoever I think will like it I’ll share it,” Rubin Johnny Cash recently 2016’s Let Them Eat Chaos – while her debut novel, The Bricks That Built the Houses, fully charged, ready to listen. So when he comes in, you better acknowledges. “While Kate was here, Jay came and visited The Book of Traps and Lessons is released on June 14, – American IV: published by Bloomsbury in 2016, was a Sunday Times Bestseller. Her stage has long been have some stuff to play him. and listened,” he adds. “I remember he listened to three (American Recordings) @MBJack The Man Comes set for bigger things. “He listens to what you’re doing, and then he talks about it Around The last album It was during a frantic spell of work in 2014 that Tempest got a call from her literary with you. And then he goes away. And you spend the rest of the Let it grow agent to say someone highly unexpected was trying to reach her after catching a day and night digesting what he said. It does your head in, you the Man in Black released in ‘Kind of you to ask, Kate - it’s his life, part of a multi-album performance on US TV by chance. can’t work it out, it doesn’t make any sense. Then he comes in superproducer special lawn career-rejuvenating cycle with Enter Rubin, the Long Island punk who co-founded Def Jam Records from his NYU again the next day and does it all again.” magic to get it this green...’ dorm room in the early 1980s and went on to build a towering reputation as a Yoda-like Besides making sure you’ve got some music to play for Rubin, is remembered for a production guru for hip-hop, rock, country and heavy metal’s great and greater still. He’s Rubin, you’d better make sure the place is tidy too. “I’m sure heartbreaking cover of Nine the man who broke the Beastie Boys with Licensed to Ill, turned the Red Hot Chili Peppers you’ve noticed that the studio is spotless,” Tempest notes, Inch Nails’ Hurt into one of the world’s biggest bands with Blood Sugar Sex Magik, helped rouse Johnny lowering her voice conspiratorially, “like, there’s not even any Cash to his fnal triumphs with the American Recordings series and made sense of Kanye’s wires anywhere. And then when me and Dan were in here 2003 sprawling Yeezus. And for Kate Tempest, out of nowhere, he was on the phone. there was shit everywhere,” she laughs. “Boxes. All the fucking Jay-Z – The “I wasn’t very prepared to know how you deal with that,” Tempest admits. “He has got notepaper. Every time the engineers would come in, they’d be Black Album the power to just reach out to anybody and say ‘What are you up to, do you want to do like ‘Rick’s coming in in an hour. Fucking clean up!’ Promoting it as some stuff?’ And so we came here, we started writing.” “Basically the whole studio, everything here is engineered his “retirement” Tempest and her regular writer-producer collaborater Dan Carey would spend several for him to be able to walk in and listen, this is what this is,” record helped weeks on and off at Shangri-La over the course of several years, slowly nurturing and Tempest explains, gesturing her arms around. “That’s what drive Jay’s defning album to eventually recording what would become The Book of Traps and Lessons. It was a challenging he does. When he walks in, everything changes, because four million sales. His pension and at times gruelling process. A stripping-back and shedding of layers and years of suddenly you’re aware of how intensely somebody is listening. evidently didn’t last long conventions and experience, all in pursuit of living up to an epiphanic vision that Rubin, It’s so loaded.” the ultimate vocalist’s producer, had for unbridling Tempest’s flow from rap’s natural 2014 driving force of the beat and letting her words run free to her own internal rhythms. The Rubin ambles into view across the lawn – a 56-year-old so Ed Sheeran – X results speak for themselves. Tender, intimate, atmospheric, dense and deeply personal, horizontally laidback-looking it’s hard to imagine him ever Rubin was among The Book of Traps and Lessons is undoubtedly striking, and possibly groundbreaking. Rubin moving at anything other than an amble, except maybe for several producers says it has the potential to be a gamechanger for modern hip-hop. when he’s levitating. He and Tempest hug and share their on Sheeran’s Carey’s music – deceptively complex but rigorously unshowy – churns and broods and excitement at their long-gestating creation’s imminent release. 15-million selling drones in the background, giving Tempest’s rapid-fre lyrics space to breathe. A sense Their connection is plainly warm and mutually valued. and to date most of social consciousness and political ire fres her work as on previous albums, but her Skin baked a deep brown, rocking a bleached-out and successful album, and had a narratives are less character-based and more frst-person. Opener Thirsty sets up a record wildly unkempt beard that properly puts the Santa in Santa hand in two of its singles

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