Some proper writing about Speech Debelle...

There's been all the usual ridiculous hoo-ha about Speech Debelle and her Mercury Prize win and we would just like to cut through the farts and write something coherent and positive. We can't pretend that we were Debelle's biggest fans post-Mercury Prize win, but we had "The Key", having downloaded it as an iTunes free single of the week. Although not blown away by the aforementioned song's offbeat saxophone riff, we were nevertheless intrigued. One of the points of the Mercury Prize, is to offer wider media coverage of a wonderful British album(s), that might not otherwise have received any attention. And to that effect, we think the sudden interest in Ms. Debelle is, not only richly deserved, but also a very good thing.

Having now consumed and digested Speech's entire album, Speech Therapy, we can report to you, fair readers, that it is indeed a worthy winner. An unmistakeble 'rap' record, it is also full of the most wonderful surprises. Melding Debelle's instantly recognisable style and rhythm with a set of riffs, samples, hooks and gorgeous string arrangements, that would seem superficially more at home on the album of a bruised anti-folk singer, than a rapper, the whole 'record' is a real treat. There are soft clarinets, melancholy guitar, sad-but-hopeful violins, and throughout, winning and clever lyrics. What is most special about Speech Therapy is how fearless it seems. In recent years, hideous Daily Fail scare-mongers have attempted to tarnish rap and hip hop by attempting to link them inextricably to murder, delinquence, misogyny and gun crime. But Debelle's record comes off braver than any gangstar rap competitor by daring to be brutally delicate, as well as honest.