Speech Predicts Her Mercury Win

Listeners to BBC Radio 5’s breakfast news heard British rapper Speech Debelle say she felt she had a good chance of winning the Barclaycard Mercury Prize, and by the end of the day it turned out she was right.

Although the 26-year-old’s Speech Therapy album has sold fewer than 3,000 copies since its release in June, the judges put her gritty take on urban life ahead of better-selling records by Florence & the Machine, Kasabian and Glasvegas.

It made her the lowest-ever selling artist to win the prize, which has previously gone to Elbow, Klaxons, Arctic Monkeys, Antony and the Johnsons and Dizzee Rascal.

“Hopefully this will throw a wrench in the system and people will hear this album and realise they don’t have to make music that sounds the same – they can make music that sounds good,” she told a packed awards ceremony at London’s Grosvenor House Sept. 8.

“She’s just quietly telling her stories in the most beguiling way,” Mercury judge Charles Hazlewood, the broadcaster and conductor, told The Independent.

Since the Mercury shortlist was announced, all 12 albums have seen their sales improve. A spokesman for the Official Charts Company said Florence + The Machine’s Lungs, which was the bookies’ favourite to win the prize, has seen sales rise 141 percent.

La Roux’s self-titled album has risen 77 percent, while Kasabian’s West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum has had a 33 percent increase.

Official Charts Company managing director Martin Talbot said Speech Therapy is one of the least-established albums in the history of the Mercurys and an album that still has great potential.

“The Mercury recognition will play a big part in helping it achieve the broader public recognition which it deserves,” he said.