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• Speech Debelle

About Speech Debelle

Corynne Elliot (born 1983 in London, England), better known as Speech Debelle, is a British rapper signed to the Big Dada record label. She was the winner of the 2009 Mercury Prize for her debut album Speech Therapy . She released her second album, Freedom of Speech , in 2012.

Freedom Of Speech

Speech Therapy

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How British rapper Speech Debelle turned her pain into poetry for Mercury-nominated album

C orynne Elliot had a troubled childhood. At the age of six her father walked out leaving her mother to raise her alone – something that was to affect her long into adulthood. As a teenager, she drove her teachers mad by repeatedly talking back to them and disrupting lessons.

"If I thought what they were saying was bollocks, I told them. It would be like the teacher would be saying my name the whole time 'Corynne, Corynne, Corynne'," she adds, barking out the words and bursting into an infectious laugh. She remembers the punishments that followed: the grey slips, the pink slips, the suspensions. Eventually she was asked to leave.

Schools, she says, are not designed for girls like her who ask too many questions and struggle to sit still and listen. She always remembers the response when she asked a careers adviser if she could one day become a counsellor: "Set your sights lower, Corynne." Then there was the English teacher who told her the advanced Sats exam was not for people like her: "I was like 'ouch'. That was the first feeling of the world kicking me."

She knew then that she wanted to "do music", but never thought that it would be possible. Instead, trouble followed her into adulthood when the arguments with her mother escalated and she felt that she had to move out. In the four years that followed, she lived between homeless hostels and friends' homes.

Looking back, she blames cannabis – which she began smoking at 15 – for tipping her into a downward spiral that would strip away her bubbly personality and leave her "not wanting to do anything, not caring about myself or anyone else".

By 18, the once chatty teenager had clammed up. Instead, she began to write constantly – spilling out all the things that had hurt her in life. She did not realise then that she was creating the lyrics of an album that was to be lauded by the music industry.

After all, Corynne Elliot had a talent. It began at the age of 13, when she rapped two lines in a maths lesson and her friends said: "Oh my god, do that again." Soon she was known as the "girl that rapped", pushed forward by her male friends as they hung around on Crystal Palace park to show off her talent to other teenagers. "Go on, Corynne," they would say, "rap to them."

The album, which began on friends' laptops and was eventually recorded in Australia with the producer Wayne Lotek, was called Speech Therapy .

Last month – under her new name of Speech Debelle – Elliot achieved something she never thought possible as a schoolgirl: she was nominated for a Mercury prize. Her "highest point", she says, was in the final weeks recording the album, when she listened to the tracks and thought: "I've done something." It had been a difficult climb.

"Let's go to the steps where we used to bunk off school and smoke weed," says Debelle, now 26, laughing as she climbs out of her silver Polo. As she walks up the long stretch of steps, she flings her arm in one direction, pointing towards her old school, Harris City Academy. At the top, she sits down on a bench and pulls out a pack of cigarettes. Crystal Palace park drops away in front of her and the suburbs of London stretch out into the distance. "That was definitely my highest point," she says, remembering finalising the album.

"My lowest point," she adds quietly, "was when I was 18. I was sad all the time and I had no idea why. I was lazy, I wasn't going to college, I had no ambition, I wasn't rapping." She pauses and tips her head to one side. "I think I was suffering from clinical depression."

Debelle says it was as if the cannabis had "triggered something" inside her. "I think it took me until I was 23 to really come out of the depression, but the upward process started at 19, as soon as I stopped smoking weed."

Sitting in the spot where she used to smoke and rap with her friends, Debelle is dressed in light blue jeans, dark trainers and a grey cardigan with gold hooped earrings and dark red, rectangular glasses. Her hair is braided with a thick strand stretched across from one side to the other. She seems to smile all the time, often breaking out into a raucous laugh.

"One of the best lessons I learnt was to shut up," adds Debelle. "I had to go through depression to realise that – you can't learn and speak at the same time."

But while she lost her voice outside the home, it was another story inside it. There she took out her frustration on her mother, letting off steam through constant arguments. "I think I was being rude and disrespectful, but I didn't recognise it at the time," she says. Speaking about her decision to move out, she says: "I knew it hurt her because it hurt me too, but we just couldn't live together."

It was the time that followed – moving between hostels in Richmond, Victoria and East Dulwich – that has made her want to dedicate time to helping charities that work in the area.

On Saturday, she will play a gig at a festival in aid of the homelessness charity, SHP, a homelessness project, and has been asked to be an ambassador for another organisation that supports women who have been in prison or involved with drugs.

"I am keen to support them because I know people who did drugs, I know the stories. My friend Frenchie, whom I talk about in my album, who died of lung cancer – he smoked crack. But more than any drug, I saw the impact of alcohol." Debelle says that the hostels she moved between were filled with alcoholics – men and women who had been "ravaged" by the drink. "They couldn't eat, they couldn't speak. I remember a guy from Scotland who had had a normal life until he was knocked off his motorbike and shattered both his ankles – alcoholics shake all the time."

She also met people she considered geniuses: "People who were millionaires, but lost it all because they got addicted to coke. You look at them and think they are a coke-addict, but they have a brilliant mind."

Debelle, who is of Jamaican origin, says that England does a lot to support people. "You wouldn't get job-seekers' allowance in Jamaica. Over there, you can't go to the government for help," she says.

Nevertheless, there is more that could be done. "The problem is that, if you go into a hostel and then you want to get work or go into education, it is hard."

Over the years, Debelle's relationship with her mother began to improve as they increasingly spent weekends together. "In those years, we became friends; we weren't friends before that." At 23, she decided to move back.

Her relationship with her father is a different story. One of her songs on the album is called "Daddy's Little Girl" and starts with the lyrics: "Daddy, I think I love you cause I hate you so much that I must love you. I put mommy above you cause she played her position and loved me unconditionally like you never have."

Thinking back, Debelle admits she was not sure whether to include the track: "I listened to it and thought this is a bit too personal, but then I thought the album is called Speech Therapy and it is about healing – so I have got to put it on there. If a young guy is listening to this and feels I don't want to be that person she is talking about, then that's good." She talks of how many men of Jamaican origin who have been brought up in England think it is normal to walk out.

"I was talking yesterday about the issue of fathers who leave," she says. "I don't know if it is a culture thing, but my father's friends would not even question it. I have Jamaican and African friends who have two parents, but my English black friends have one. Why? You would have to go way back for that and it would take too long. I call it post-traumatic slave syndrome."

Being brought up as a Jamaican in England means that she sees things differently to others who are wholly English, says Debelle. "My manager, Juliette, we go for meals and she talks all the way through while eating and takes forever to eat. And I am like 'When you sit down to eat, you just put your head down and eat'. That is a cultural thing. And Jamaicans don't do the whole queuing thing."

In England, Debelle says she is seen as Jamaican, but in Jamaica she is definitely English: "I am a lost generation, I don't have a proper place." In terms of her music, she has tried to mix the two cultures. One song, "Bad Boy", is rock while another, "Buddy Love", is reggae. "You don't hear rock in Jamaica and you don't hear reggae in the mainstream here."

Her fans seem not to care about her background; they just like her tracks. As she stands outside the huge leisure centre in Crystal Palace, a teenage boy walks up to her and says: "Are you that female rapper that I have seen on television?" When Speech smiles and nods, he yells: "Nuff respect."

Speech Debelle: In her own words

FINISH THIS ALBUM

Speech wrote this track when she was 17. It talks about life as a teenager in London.

When I look at my future I fear failure, I fear the fact that you might not like me / I know I'm skilled but just maybe slightly, what if my light don't shine so brightly/ I'm scared of that, I'm telling you the truth, I'm scared of that.

SPEECH THERAPY

The track that shares its name with the album talks about the mistakes she made.

I'm sorry mum for all the times that I made you cry/ And it's been said before in songs but you are my life.../ And nobody's gonna hurt you ever as long as this sun shines/ And hell would have to freeze over before I take that back/ This is my speech therapy, this isn't rap.

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Speech Debelle London, UK

Corynne Elliot, AKA Speech Debelle, kicked in the music industry’s backdoor in 2009, waving her sensitive, introspective Mercury Prize ‘British Album of the Year’ and debut album ‘Speech Therapy’, beating the likes of Florence and the Machine, Kasabian and La Roux. Her 2012 Kwes-produced sophomore album ‘Freedom Of Speech’ and her 3rd album in 2017 "Tantil Before I Breathe" ...   more

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Speech Debelle

‘There is no management, label or publisher. I have to be still and take direction from my gut’ - Speech Debelle on her new album, going it alone and overcoming anxiety…

• By Jim Ottewill
• 17 Mar 2017

As a lyricist, performer, campaigner, even a celebrity chef Speech Debelle is held in high critical regard but 2017 sees her returning to the microphone where she first caught eyes and ears. Speech Debelle breached the UK music industry’s in 2009 with her debut album, Speech Therapy , which won the Mercury Music Prize for British album of the year. Her Kwes-produced sophomore album, Freedom Of Speech (2012) followed before a hiatus which saw her on our TVs in Celebrity Masterchef and curating art exhibitions. Now she’s back with her third record, tantil before I breathe , a record exploring her developing self-awareness, healing and liberation, accompanied by a digital cookbook and memoir filled with stories documenting the highs and lows of the poetic South London lyricist's journey through life and the music business. You can watch her perform live at PRS Presents and check out our interview below on the record... How did you first get into music? Was there a person or record that first turned you onto sounds? It's difficult to say. I’m not even sure that I got into music so much as I realised it was within me. I remember hearing Michael Jackson’s Human Nature and breaking down in tears. The way each instrument lent itself to the other like a relay was so beautiful. It's still my favourite and most important song in my life. How did you end up making your own music? I was the annoying person in studios. If I knew someone with a studio (even a bedroom set up) I would damn near camp out there. Sometimes until they'd have to ask me to leave. I just wanted to be in the environment of creating music. When that energy matched the right person we'd start making music together. I learned to make while making an album. Speech Therapy is your debut record and won the Mercury Music Prize - could you talk a little about the win? Was this a big surprise to you at the time? And how did it change your musical career? While in Melbourne in Wayne Lotek in 2007 recording that album I had a vision. I saw myself collecting the award. I told Wayne who thought it was cute (we were making the album in his front room with about £3,000 budget). As the time got closer I'd get signs that it could be a possibility I was nominated. Once the nomination came I was like "I saw it. I guess it's happening". I think some people saw me as arrogant as the old English way is to pretend you don't think you deserve it. But, I thought deserved it, as much as anyone else and was okay saying it. How do you approach the creative process? I usually start with a vibe which translates as a tempo. Drums are early for me. The top line comes to me next and then I start thinking about words. I'm usually working with someone else so they take my direction and evolve on it. Sometimes though I hear the whole song and as long as I can get to my phone or studio, I can record it. Humming the top line, the bottom line, and beat boxing the drums. Tantil before I breathe is your new record - could you explain the thinking behind the record? What has inspired it? The theme of breathing became important to me in 2014 when I released I had been suffering anxiety attacks all my life and didn't even have a name for it. I had to learn to be still and to breathe. Without learning that I would have sent myself over the edge making this album. There is no management, label or publisher. I have to be still and take direction from my gut. And how was the making and writing? Did it come easier than previous releases? Writing is as natural to me as walking, but albums are not easy to make. The creative side is fun, smooth, engaging. But without the giant to do list, 1,000s of emails and getting to all of the meetings, it will never leave your laptop. Which artists are you currently excited by? Jonwayne, Chronixx, Loyle Carner, Black Motion. You have curated exhibitions as well as appearing on Celebrity Masterchef - how have these experiences shaped you and your music? It's all art. Food, music, art. Working with people. Being inspired and inspiring as a unit. What does the future have in store for you? The Work Brunch Podcast is now on episode eight which is a blessing. Each week I cook a meal for a guest inspired by their early food memories and find out what fuels them to share their work. So far we've had, Lianne La Havas, Caleb Femi, Nitin Sawhney, Ayishat Akanbi and more. The album lands with a e-cookbook/memoir of the same title. Then there's the UK May tour. Have you got any advice for new or aspiring music makers? Do it for the art. It has to get you up in the morning. Let the universe help you with the rest. Watch Speech play Strange Ways from PRS Presents . Tantil before i breathe is out now. speechdebelle.com Features

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Speech Therapy

August 6, 2009

A couple of months before the UK release of her first album, Speech Therapy , before she received a surprise Mercury Prize nomination, Speech Debelle mused on Twitter, "There are some white people in the music business who think im not black enough... lol". No shit: Even in a "post-race" world, street sells. Certain British journalists predictably pounced on lyrics about a period in Debelle's late teens idled among London's demimonde of crack mums and minor crooks, spinning a tiny bit of flash into blinding bling. Fact is, she was raised in a middle-class Jamaican neighborhood south of the Thames where she, uh, attended school and studied music and wrote poetry. Debelle doesn't so much map "street" as girl-next-door or Speech-from-the-block. Wherever she's from, anyway, some hip-hop fans will likely write her off because the usual American rap signifiers-- samples, seething synths, bombastic beats, and buckets of braggadocio-- play scant part in her artistic agenda.

But if Debelle can't win the authenticity game, so be it; The baby-faced, mature-minded 26-year old has debuted with a fine, fresh, serious (yet never dour) album that speaks for itself, thanks. Wayne Lotek (Roots Manuva, who makes an appearance) produces the 13-track set on a spacious, spontaneous, even improvisational-sounding jazz tip with understated string, key, woodwind, and brass arrangements. It's hard to imagine a more effacing intro to someone being billed as UK hip-hop's next big thing as "Searching"'s tremulous guitar and brushed cymbals, which only slowly crack the door to a secret of skittish beats and Debelle's anxious "2 a.m. in my hostel bed, my eyes them red, my belly ain't fed." Elsewhere, Lotek deploys everything from Afrobeat guitar lines to trumpet solos to new-agey bell tones, providing texture without upstaging Debelle's low-resting-pulse cadence. He's not trying to upstage her, anyway. Knockout single "The Key" is cool for Debelle's relaxed, conversational delivery, but gets its heat from a clarinet's serpentine swish and the way all the instruments pile on her voice in the last minute like a hill of ants on a dropped donut.

Ultimately, though, Speech Therapy isn't a producer's record, but an MC's. And the title's no feint: Speech lies supine on the couch for the full 50 minutes. Fortunately, whether she's sifting through the anguish she's caused her mother and the trouble she's having finishing her album, or realizing that good sex can make for bad boyfriends and that even sucky jobs serve some cosmic purpose, she generally cuts through the crap without pretending to have easy answers. If you think you've heard everything about absent, irresponsible fathers and the children who tear their own insides out loving them, Debelle, in "Daddy's Little Girl", is casual but ruthlessly right-on: "Daddy, I think I love you 'cause I hate you so much that I must love you".

Which isn't to say she doesn't sometimes copy captions from baby animal posters. Debelle credits tough American female MCs like Lil' Kim with artistic inspiration, but her outlook's far more pacifist and optimistic-- even erring on the side of naïvete. The same song ("Spinning") that kills it with the couplet, "This is for the tat on my wrist/ This is for the black of my fist," also whimpers "One day all people will be all equal/ Until that day comes I'll just be singing my song". To make sense of such inconsistencies, it helps to think of Debelle in relation to a less-violent Brithop tradition and to impossible-to-peg (and, yeah, inconsistent) contemporaries Lady Sovereign or Micachu. (The latter pops in on "Better Days" to don her Miss Ubiquity 2009 sash and execute an underwhelming smile-wave-turn move.)

Hip-hop could use a less rigid paradigm, less insularity, more girls on the mic. I suspect plenty of people with a greater investment in this genre would disagree and dismiss Speech Therapy as coffeehouse rap. Debelle anticipates that reaction, though, with the record's final lyric: "I understand this is my speech therapy, this ain't rap." But it could be.

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