Speech Debelle Tickets Bristol

About Speech Debelle

Corynne Elliot , 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 and her third album, tantil before i breathe in 2017.

Debelle's single from Speech Therapy, "Spinnin" has been re-worked by Tinchy Stryder and Dionne Bromfield and was used as one of the official anthems of the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.

She has also been politically and socially active with a number of charities and movements, and hosted the BBC documentary Hidden Homeless in 2012.

Corynne Elliot was born in 1983 in London, England, and was raised by her mother in a middle-class Jamaican household in London, south of the River Thames. She attended Harris City Academy, and at age 9 began writing poetry. While she wanted to be a singer, she disliked her singing voice when younger, so decided to try rapping at age 13. Within a week other students in her class had learned all her lyrics. At age 16, writing became an emotional outlet for her. Debelle drew inspiration from Michael Jackson and in particular the song "Human Nature", as well as Blackstreet, Mary J. Blige, TLC and reggae music. She left home after arguing with her mother at the age of 19, and for three years Debelle lived in London in either homeless hostels or with friends. While estranged from her mother at the time, she has said she did keep in regular contact. Now reconciled with her mother, Speech cites these years as formative in developing her ambition and material.

Debelle returned to her mother's house at age 23 and began calling record labels. In November 2007 she was signed by Big Dada records, a small imprint of Ninja Tune. She has said the label helped her develop artistically, and gave her complete creative control of her music.Debelle's debut album, Speech Therapy, was released in the United Kingdom on 31 May 2009. The album was led by a white label limited release of "Searching". Thereafter the album had three singles released, "The Key", "Better Days" featuring Micachu, "Go Then, Bye" and finally "Spinning". Recorded mostly in Australia, the album was created by Debelle, Wayne Lotek and Plutonic Lab , and Big Dada founder Will Ashon, the album documented her formative years in London. She has cited her biggest influences on the album as he biggest inspiration for the first album was Tracy Chapman and Meshell Ndegeocello. Unlike many other hip hop albums, the tracks eschew the use of samples and rely instead on live instrumentals.

"The Key" won Best Budget Video for Pop, Dance, Urban at the UK Music Video Awards in 2009.

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article "Speech Debelle", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0.