Mercury Prize winner Speech Debelle ‘sacks’ record label

London musician gives Big Dada the boot

Speech Debelle, who won the Barclaycard Mercury Prize earlier this year for her album ‘Speech Therapy’, has sacked her record label, Big Dada.

The London musician said that she had given her label the boot because of their supposed failure to capitalise on her win by keeping up with demand for the album.

“The Mercury Prize was on a Tuesday, and the Friday there were no more physical albums in the shops,” she told BBC 6 Music. “So on the Mercury weekend, which would have been my biggest-selling weekend, people couldn’t get it.”

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She added: “I wasn’t disappointed that it didn’t sell well, I was disappointed in the people I was working with.

“I wasn’t on a big label and the machine wasn’t there. So, even though the album won the Mercury, it was still only able to do what the label was capable of doing, which just means that I’m more prepared for next time.”

Debelle is set to fly to Australia to record a follow-up album to ‘Speech Therapy’ with producer Wayne Lotek.

“I want it to be a mix of Ray Charles, a song like ‘Georgia On My Mind’,” she said. “I want it to have the atmosphere of Pink Floyd‘s ‘The Dark Side Of The Moon’ and the drums of J Dilla.”

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