Drone albums, vampire plays, Charlotte Church duets … the Londoner has an inspiringly odd CV. She explains how the disrupted experience of Black daily life fills her work
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he ever-viral hip-hop video platform On the Radar has hosted freestyles from some of the biggest artists in the world. Drake, Central Cee and Ice Spice have each graced the channel with their presence, yet throughout its seven-year history, few acts have gone in quite like Klein. This time last year, the south London artist spiralled through a procession of evocative flexes, rasped through Auto-Tune over a mind-expanding loop of pitch-shifted wailing, then slung a black guitar over her shoulder to shred through a lacerating noise solo with a joyous smile.
“People were trying to beat me up!” she says, giggling as she reflects on her appearance. “I was just being myself! Some people liked it, some people didn’t, some people hated it so much they would send me emails. For someone to feel that so viscerally as to send me an email? Low key? Iconic.”
Klein’s wildly varied output exists on this polarising axis. For every Caroline Polachek collaboration or feature on a Mike record, you can expect a frazzled drone album recorded in a single session to be put up for Grammy consideration or the quiet, Bandcamp-only release of one of her “once in a blue moon” rap songs. For every unsettling rap video she directs or grinning appearance alongside Earl Sweatshirt, she puts out a Real Housewives of Atlanta review or a full-blown feature film, starring kindred spirit composer Mica Levi and cultural theorist Fred Moten as her parents. She once convinced Charlotte Church to duet with her and last year starred as a vampire missionary in a one-woman play in Los Angeles.
