Kae Tempest
Know Yourself

[Intro]
If you saw the younger you, what would you say to them?
I would say, "Thanks." I would say "Peace"
I'd tell "Soon child, you're going to find release"

[Verse 1]
Long time coming to right now pipe down lifetime looking for things I thought I'd found already, falling to the floor like I'm alright I'm steady
I send myself back so I can tell me
Twenty years deep in the rhyme of beats and I'm still so far from finding peace
Every line is a ladder I can climb through time and I walk Straight faced through these winding streets
I eat the bread of rhythm I drink the milk of rhyme
I've been carrying a bag of shamе that's bigger than me
Pushing it ahead of mе, up an endless staircase, until the day I realised this doesn't mean what I think it does
I don't need to carry this forever, I left it in the clearing by the fire pit and ran
Back to the child I was looking for an elder I saw myself there I took myself by the hand

[Chorus]
When I was young I sought help from my older self I came into my head I told me know yourself
When I was young I sought help from my older self I came into my head I told me know yourself

[Verse 2]
I was seventeen heaven seemed close enough to touch I had never been happier, chest against the barrier
Watching Wu-Tang my own character starting to bloom
I was learning how to capture a room in two phrases
Twenty years deep in the rhymes of beats close my eyes and speak down the wires of time I go back to the child I was when I put myself on the line
I had to beg for the mic, I had to deal with they ignorance, had to get better I wanted bigger things
These days, those days they are far away, try and catch them in my sights but they start to fade
Now I sit amongst great loads of rhyme books and I think about the days that the time took I thank the little me that put the work in
Could you picture me when you were spitting sixteens?
Surfing the top deck penning them bars, underaged in the clubs taking charge of the mic
Precautious little nothing with the world in his sights
I am on it now I will work harder
This is peace to the kid I came after (Peace to the kid I came after)
The words of the bridge between the present and the past I know myself at last
[Chorus]
When I was young I sought help from my older self I came into my head I told me know yourself
When I was young I sought help from my older self I came into my head I told me know yourself

I told me know yourself

[Outro]
Soon child you're going to find release (Soon child you're going to find release)