Speech Debelle

(Mercury Music Award winner 2009)

Hiphop
Speech Debelle raps with complete intimacy, as if only addressing one person. Her debut album Speech Therapy, produced by regular Roots Manuva collaborator Wayne Lotek, is both intimate and epic, moving back and forth between the personal and political, the mundane and the spiritual. At the age of twenty-five her fragile voice can make her sound like a teenager, but she’s packed in enough experience to last most people forever: from reflections on hostel life and the hustles involved in getting by on the South London streets, to funny incidents and sharp observations. “Daddy’s Little Girl” is a scathing attack on an absent father held together by organ and dub bass. “Bad Boy” looks unflinchingly but also non-judgementally at the attitudes and outlooks of the yout’s Speech grew up knowing. “Buddy Love” is a funny, bouncing look at what happens when you start shagging your mate. 
“Sensational” – Sunday Times 
“Potent, precious, poignant. The artist Lily Allen could only dream of being” – DJ 
“A superstar in the making” – Update [single of the week] 
“Like no hip hop record you’ve ever heard” – Dazed & Confused 
“Urban decay recast as a brooding short film, flooded with poetry and honest emotional toil” – iDJ