KOKO Asia News
And The Winner Is...
Date: 09 September 2009
By Johnny Mayo
The much acclaimed Barclaycard Mercury Prize award ceremony took place in London last night with London’s newest rap starlet Speech Debelle taking the prestigious prize over artists like Kasabian, Glasvegas and Florence and the Machine.
Despite not being the favourite, the feisty Londoner was voted as the most promising new British talent for her album ‘Speech Therapy’. The Mercury Prize is now in its 17th year and aims to honour some of the best new albums from the UK and Ireland in the past 12 months. Winning the award is almost a sure sign of future success given previous winners such as Arctic Monkeys, Klaxons, Portishead and Pulp.
Approaching the award plinth to the chant of “Speech! Speech!” she humbly accepted her trophy before telling the crowd "Thank you to the panellists, to my band, thank you so much to my mum, to my fans. Thank you to whoever's name's on the cheque. I'll be here all night – thank you very much, good night."
Now with the recognition of one of the UK’s most favoured music awards adorning her mantelpiece we can be sure to hear a lot more of this lady over the coming months and she has already set her aims high. She is planning to visit the US later this year to work with some of the biggest producers in the business, but joked that she probably wouldn’t work with Kanye West as he’s “too mouthy”. (That and the guy is a total douche – Mayo)
She also revealed how it was former underground darling of the garage scene Ms Dynamite (who won the award herself in 2002) who inspired her to get into music and realise her full potential, although she also said that she is also a massive fan of Kings of Leon and would love to work with them in the future. Watch this space, perhaps?
All the nominated acts played a song each at the Grosvenor House Hotel with hotly tipped favourites Kasabian kicking off the night with a rendition of their latest single ‘Fire’ who said “It’s not often I’m lost for words. Thank you for nominating us for the Mercury Prize. God bless, love you all.”
Friendly Fires were up next playing one of their greatest tracks ‘Jump In The Pool’. The great shame however, was that Glasvegas did not play live, but guitarist Rab Allan gave a short speech after a video of their song ’Geraldine’ was played. “First of all sorry James can’t be with us, he’s ill. I’d just like to thank anyone who’s helped us, fought for us. Have a great night and good luck to everybody else.” You can hear more from the band below.
The full list of nominations were:
- Bat For Lashes – 'Two Suns'
- Florence And The Machine – 'Lungs'
- Friendly Fires – 'Friendly Fires'
- Glasvegas – 'Glasvegas'
- The Horrors – 'Primary Colours'
- La Roux – 'La Roux'
- Led Bib – 'Sensible Shoes'
- The Invisible - 'The Invisible'
- Lisa Hannigan – 'Sea Sew'
- Kasabian – 'West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum'
- Speech Debelle – 'Speech Therapy'
- Sweet Billy Pilgrim – 'Twice Born Men'
