Speech Debelle

Layering laid back poetry and stirring confessionals over wandering jazz and soul beats from another era, Brit MC Speech Debelle earned a quick following for her honest hip-hop concoctions in the late-'00s. Her dreamy style is a translucent mask for a hard-edged early life of struggle and sorrow--a sense of life truly lived pervades her music, from her fully-formed backing band, the Therapists, to her broken cadences and heart-on-sleeve lyrics. An absentee father, spells of homelessness, and other hardships poured into the music on her 2009 debut SPEECH THERAPY, a critically-acclaimed, award magnet.

• hip hop/rap