Homeless Hip-Hop Starlet Wins Top UK Music Award

ABOVE: Winner of the UK’s top music prize: Speech Debelle. (For someone named Speech, she’s actually  sort of mumbly…)

Hip-hop singer Speech Debelle won Britain’s Barclaycard Mercury Prize yesterday for her album “Speech Therapy,” a work fueled by a period the young rapper spent homeless, according to an Associated Press report.

Debelle’s tender vocals and witty lyrics won out over 11 other acts, including Kasabian and Bat for Lashes, to nab the prize - a 20,000 pound ($33,000) award which usually goes to outsiders rather than more established acts.

I feel so good,” the 26-year-old said after her win. “It feels better than I imagined. My family’s here. My friends are here. I’m from south London. I don’t get emotional - I’m emotional.”

According to the AP, this year’s favorites to win the coveted prize included Debelle’s fellow south Londoners Florence + the Machine, synth-heavy La Roux, and haunting electro-folk group Sweet Billy Pilgrim. Others in the hunt were The Horrors, Glasvegas, Led Bib, The Invisible, Lisa Hannigan, and Friendly Fires.

Do you think Speech deserved to win the 2009 Mercury Prize?
We were kinda hoping for the Horrors or Lisa Hannigan…

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