Mercury Music Prize winner Speech Debelle has ditched her record company Big Dada as she blames them for her poor record sales.
Normally winning the prize boosts an album’s sales, but Speech Therapy didn’t rise above number 65 in the charts – something Debelle attributes to the record label’s limitations.
"I wasn’t disappointed that it didn’t sell well, I was disappointed in the people I was working with," she told BBC 6 Music. "I wasn’t on a big label and the machine wasn’t there. So even though the album won the Mercury it was still only able to do what the label was capable of doing, which just means that I’m more prepared for next time.
"The Mercury Prize was on a Tuesday, and the Friday there were no more physical albums in the shops. So on the Mercury weekend, which would have been my biggest-selling weekend, people couldn’t get it."
Debelle is now searching for a new label, adding: "One thing I’ve learned is that having bargaining power is important. It’s important to walk into a record label and say, ‘This is what I have, and these are the kind of terms I want.’"
