Speech Therapy

Speech Debelle's SPEECH THERAPY is one of the most unique hip-hop albums one's likely to hear. There aren't any samples or turntablism, instead, the grooves are supplied mostly by acoustic instruments, many of them lightly and skitteringly jazzy. The soft, jazz-inflected accompaniment adds an entirely new dimension to Debelle's nervous and unsettled rapping on "Searching" and "Better Days," and the subtle but elegantly complex rhythmic displacements in the lyric to "The Key." On "Bad Boy," sweet strings and junglist drums push nicely against each other, and on the kiss-off rap "Go Then, Bye" a lushly beautiful acoustic guitar and small string ensemble accompany a startlingly angry and unsettled rap. There are, inevitably, a couple of clunkers: Debelle's flow is awkward on "Working Weak," and "Finish This Album" is a bit too literally self-referential. But those are minor missteps compared to the great strengths of this very fine debut.