Preparations for the release of "Jerusalaam Come" continue apace. Juice has arranged launch parties in both hometown Birmingham and London with a whole host of guests to make things bump. Longtime friend and labelmate Roots Manuva will host in London, while guests across the two events include
Charlee Brown, Triple Darkness, Cipher from Moorish Delta, Lady Justice, Mz C Brown, R-tillery, Blackitude, The What Supreme, Mad Flow and DJ Moyma. So make sure you're around in August at the following locations:
22nd - Hare and Hounds, Kings Heath, 106 High St, Birmingham B14 7JZ - £2
First single "First Lesson" is also being mastered today. With a fantastic remix package including re-rubs from Evil 9, Rude Kid, A La Fu and Shadowless Domain, it fuckin' bumps! Check it soon. Marvellousness guaranteed!
Speech - Live and Free
Thursday 02 Jul
This Friday you can see Speech Debelle and her excellent band playing live - for free. Thanks to the good people at Time Out, Speech will be playing the Barfly in London's fashionable Camden district(*snigger*) and the tax on the door will be waived. You can get all the details here....
If you can't make it, though, pitch your tent in your living room, piss on it, go and roll around in a flowerbed for a while then set your computer up outside the tent and watch Speech at Glastonbury. When you've revelled in her three tracks there, watch her backstage acoustic contribution to BBC2's coverage on iPlayer, 11 and a b it minutes into the chunk stored here. (I was gonna say that those of you without a computer could see this again in the Beeb's Glasto highlight package this weekend but then, er, duh, blibble, I realised). Oh, and watch another very different acoustic performance for the Telegraph here. True dat.
Speech Debelle & Roots Manuva Live Glastonbury Coverage
Monday 29 Jun
Glastonbury is over for another year but the memories live on thanks to the BBC iPlayer! Watch Speech and Roots perform while you wash the mud off your wellies:
Speech Debelle 'Better Days' Video Premiere on Pitchfork
Thursday 25 Jun
Speech Debelle kicks off the festival season with a cracking video for her new single, "Better Days," a harder hitting, more beat-led piece of hip hop than some of her earlier releases, but losing none of their emotional charge.
Produced by Plutonic Lab during Speech’s stay in Australia, Ms Debelle returned to Blighty without a chorus in place. After various ideas for singers were mooted she settled on Micachu, who could add a distinctive and distinctly British soul to proceedings. The result is blazing – swinging, snapping drums contrasted with deep double bass and acoustic guitar, Speech’s clever, incisive, real lyrics and the unexpected twists of Micachu’s melancholy chorus. As NME has already put it, it’s “a slow-burning slice of pop that’s both unsettlingly gloomy and joyously uplifting.”
Directed by Rollo Jackson (Hot Chip, Man Like Me, Chris Clark), the video - like the tune itself - features Micachu as well as Speech and was filmed in East London and the badlands of Dagenham.
With “Speech Therapy” already being tipped as one of the albums of the year, “Better Days” is a reminder just why so many people are getting so excited about this young South Londoner….
