Benjamin Clementine defeats all other with a simple act

“I realised that we are all equal and that it’s all about helping each other and I learned a lot of things from Paris. In Paris I learned to grow up as a man.”

He added: “I am English but I do truly respect Paris, the people of Paris, they love art and I really did have to dedicate this to them.

Clementine said the city remained “very dear” to him and said that he had been “devastated, very sad, heartbroken” following the news of terrorist attacks in the city last Friday. He said he had visited the Bataclan last Saturday to pay his respects to the victims.


“I went to the [Bataclan] for a little bit and then I felt free,” he said. “I felt like a weight had been pulled off my shoulder.”

Clementine said he only started dreaming about becoming a professional musician three years into busking in Paris, after people on the streets started giving him encouragement and he began writing his own songs. He said couldn’t believe he was receiving the same award that had been given to his musical hero Anthony Hergarty, of Anthony and the Johnsons, in 2000.

“I didn’t ever think it would get here and I didn’t have have anyone who could help get me here. In England, no-one had heard of me ... I always said, unless England accepts me I’m going to be very, very sad. Well I guess they now accept me a bit too much.”

Clementine said he would be putting the £20,000 Mercury prize money towards pianos in his home borough of Edmonton, as well as funding his tour. “I’ve always thought about helping homeless people, since I was once homeless, so if it can – because £20,000 should someway, somehow help people – I’ll put it that way.”

Singer Corinne Bailey-Rae, who was on the judging panel, said Clementine’s record had won the judges over with its original songwriting, and “fresh and contemporary sound”.

“We just thought this was really special and we thought he was an artist who was unique. Obviously vocally he has a very specific interesting sound, but also the things he is choosing to write about and the melodies and how they veer off in a really unexpected way; I was calling it fireworks.

“It’s really free and you feel like you are with him, in his mind, on that rollercoaster ride ... sometimes you feel like you are inside the piano.”