You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs and piece by piece, tell the story of how they were made.

I'm Rishi Kei Shihirui.

Just a quick note before you listen, this episode contains explicit language and frank discussions of mental health.

K-tempest is a songwriter, rapper, an award-winning poet, and best-selling novelist.

They've been nominated for the UK's Mercury Prize and Brit Award.

Their most recent album is The Line Is A Curve, which came out earlier this year.

It was executive produced by legendary producer Rick Rubin.

Kei made the album alongside their long-time collaborator, producer Dan Carey.

I talked to Kei and Dan about how they made the song Move.

You'll hear the first demo they made, which basically sounds nothing like the final version.

In this episode, they talk about how it evolved over several sessions, month support.

Kei's own life changed a lot during that period.

They came out as trans and non-binary in 2020, and this song, in part, helps tell the story of what they were going through.

My name is Kei Tempest.

December 2019.

It was the culmination of a lifetime of being trans and a lifetime of repressing and being confused,

but I really severe three or four years.

But this was the crisis point because I could not hold it down anymore,

and I had been having these constant panic attacks.

I've been having them on stage.

I didn't know at this point that I was about to come out publicly a couple of months later.

I didn't know that was going to happen, but I was fully in the kind of ripped out of it.

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