24 Facts About Speech Debelle

Speech Debelle was the winner of the 2009 Mercury Prize for her debut album Speech Therapy.

Speech Debelle has been politically and socially active with a number of charities and movements, and hosted the BBC documentary Hidden Homeless in 2012.

Speech Debelle attended Harris City Academy in Croydon and at age 9 began writing poetry.

Speech Debelle left home after arguing with her mother at the age of 19, and for three years Debelle lived in London in either homeless hostels or with friends.

Now reconciled with her mother, Speech cites these years as formative in developing her ambition and material.

Speech Debelle returned to her mother's house at age 23 and began calling record labels.

Speech Debelle has said the label helped her develop artistically, and gave her complete creative control of her music.

Debelle's debut album, Speech Therapy, was released in the United Kingdom on 31 May 2009.

Speech Debelle has cited her biggest influences on the album as he biggest inspiration for the first album was Tracy Chapman and Meshell Ndegeocello.

Speech Debelle Therapy won the 2009 Mercury Music Award and was reported as being an upset to more well-known competitors such as Florence and the Machine and Kasabian.

Speech Debelle criticised the Big Dada record label for indequately marketing the album and was reported to have dropped them.

Nevertheless Debelle reunited with them in 2011 to work on her second album entitled Freedom of Speech.

In March 2010 Speech Debelle teamed up with Bonobo to co-write and sing on the song "Sun Will Rise", taken from Ninja Tune's 'XX' Boxset.

The track deals with uprising events in countries including Egypt and Libya, but Speech Debelle has stated the song has even more pertinence to the 2011 England riots.

In February 2012, Debelle released her follow-up album, Freedom of Speech, via Big Dada Recordings.

In 2009, Speech Debelle appeared alongside Gary Barlow, David Arnold and Jimmy Carr for a CARE charity concert in aid of youth education.

Speech Debelle was invited to 10 Downing Street to celebrate "British Talent", in association with the Talent and Enterprise Taskforce.

Speech Debelle joined with the National Union of Students to Support Ken Livingstone's "save EMA" pledge.

In early 2011 Speech Debelle took part in a photography project set up by Oxfam and photographer Martin Parr, which help spread awareness about climate change.

Speech Debelle began teaming up with Chuka Umunna the MP for Streatham on her community work to speak about the importance of voting.

Speech Debelle has volunteered with Barnardo's to promote youth inclusion through a project to deliver an alternate Christmas Day video message to their elders on YouTube, as well as writing about gender equality for the VSO Godmothers blog.

On 4 October 2011 Speech Debelle was part of the Young Voter's Question Time panel during the Conservative Party Conference in Salford.

Speech Debelle hosted a BBC documentary about homeless youth called Hidden Homeless in 2012.

In 2013 Speech Debelle curated The Strength and Vulnerability Bunker, an exhibition at the Southbank Centre, London, presented by the Koestler Trust who exhibit art works by prisoners, detainees and ex-offenders.