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Awards Top Stories
Speech Debelle wins Mercury Prize
By CMU Editorial | Published on Wednesday 9 September 2009
So, Speech Debelle’s debut album, ‘Speech Therapy’, has been named the best album of the last twelve months, by the Mercury Prize judges. The Ninja Tune/Big Dada-signed rapper also became the lowest selling artist ever to win the award, with just 3000 copies of her album sold prior to the win. Although this is something now likely to be remedied fairly quickly – sales of Elbow’s ‘The Seldom Seen Kid’ have risen 700% since their win last year.
In a short acceptance speech, Debelle gave a nod to fellow nominees The Invisible and thanked all involved, including the judges, her label, her family, her band and “whoever’s name’s on the cheque”.
Asked later what she planned to do with the prize money, she said that she’d invest it, perhaps in her own record label, which she is currently in the process of setting up.
When the nominations were announced in July, Debelle was given odds of 33/1 by bookmakers, although these were cut to 4/1 yesterday, making her second favourite to take the prize, behind Florence And The Machine.
Last night’s ceremony was also supposed to be the first ever to feature performances from all twelve nominees. However, Glasvegas had to pull out of playing because frontman James Allan, according to reports, hasn’t been seen since Friday and didn’t turn up for the ceremony. The band told various journalists this was due to illness and a dislike of music industry awards. Friendly Fires drummer Jack Savidge also nearly missed the show, after being admitted to hospital on Monday with a rash on his leg, but recovered in time to perform with the band last night.
In other awards news, Girls Aloud last night won this year’s Popjustice Twenty Quid Music Prize for the fifth time in the seven years the award has been running. No one from the group has yet commented on how they will spend the money.
