Ben Kemp
About Ben Kemp from Wellington
So who is Ben Kemp His relative anonymity in New Zealand obscures a prolific artist; Kemp has already released two albums, 2005’s A River’s Mouth and 2006’s Papatu Road, while playing in excess of 200 live shows in Japan and New Zealand, including two “under the radar” tours to his homeland.
In 2008 he brings his third studio album - Inside the Un-Cut Apple to audiences around New Zealand.
“I have this vision, a frighteningly descriptive vision, that I have carried with me since a child,” tells Kemp. “It’s of a Pohutukawa tree that was perched high upon a bank at the ocean’s edge; for some reason everything I do revolves around that image. I remember it as a child, travelling in the Far North of New Zealand, standing there clinging on to the land that was being relentlessly ravaged by the ocean pounding against the edge of that eroded bank.
“The vision of that tree, standing strong while the waves crashed around its very foundation, was the thing that awakened my journey to find my identity.”
For Kemp, born in 1972 to maternal Maori heritage and paternal German / New Zealand ancestry, identity was not something that came naturally.
Raised in Manutuke (current pop. 636) on the southern outskirts of Gisborne, Kemp felt at odds by a predominantly Maori community that cast him as ‘too white’ (although he does recall performing a haka on the marae grounds at Whale-Rider famed Whangara) and emerged into more ‘white’ communities where he was considered Maori. He grew up in a cultural space, in-between.
“As a child I always had this identity conflict; I went to a predominantly Maori primary school as a Pakeha, then went to a predominantly Pakeha high school identifying as Maori. I lived in that space for quite a few years, so inwardly I held my culture very close to me,” he says. “Coming from someone who has grown up with a mixed sense of identity and belonging, I feel like I’ve long been on a search for answers about my “Maori-ness” and identity.
“Acceptance within these communities hasn’t easily to me as my family have been considered outsiders since my grandmother married a Pakeha. I believe there was even sadness in my own grandmother to witness the Maori blood diluting with each generation. It is only since I reached my twenties, and have been crafting my own art forms, that I’ve had the ability to get closer to knowing my roots. I understand that this is my own head space and something I must come to terms with on my own.”
It’s a long way from Manutuke to Japan, where he first moved to as a 23 year-old and then returned to live permanently.
Yet it is somewhat odd that he returns home virtually unknown, despite his rising profile in Japan. Also a poet, Kemp has published work in New Zealand by Trout by Auckland University Press, Deep South by Otago University Press and was invited to read at Montana National Poetry Day as one of two emerging poets.
“Poetry allows me to express without the layers, it provides me with the bones I need,” he says. “That grounding in poetry in turn gives the music of Uminari an element of introspection, honesty and depth. For me that kind of honesty is something that I can’t hide and there’s a real beauty and charm in honesty. I don’t want to present a façade – my integrity as an artist and human being over-rides everything. I want to keep developing that.”
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