Speech Debelle: ‘Man, the music business is cold’

Three years after winning the Mercury prize, the rapper suffered a major meltdown. Now, as she’s about to perform her new album, she reveals why she’s back on stageOn 8 September 2009, Speech Debelle’s career began to unravel. That evening, the British rapper’s debut beat albums by indie favourites Kasabian, the Horrors and Florence + the Machine to scoop the Mercury music prize. Speech Therapy mixed jazz-leaning beats, which were largely created on acoustic instruments, including the cl