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  • 2 days ago
We chat to the singer at Bestival about her Mercury Music Prize evening, how hopeful she was about winning and attending the ceremony for the first time.
Transcript
00:08It's sinking in but it's taking a while obviously it's such an amazing thing to
00:14happen and to win the prize for a second time but for me to actually be there for
00:20the first time and collect it it really was quite overwhelming and the amount of
00:26good spirit that I felt in the room and the support it was it was just wonderful it's
00:33hard to put into words how much it meant to me I still can't quite take it in when
00:40you've grown something from a tiny seed of an idea and spent two and a half three
00:46years slowly slowly working on it and the only person that's believing in it in
00:52that point is you for three years later for it to be so wholeheartedly welcomed
01:01and taken into other people's lives now the record means a lot to other people
01:06that's everything I could have wished for no I wasn't expecting to win I actually
01:13felt quite surprised I almost didn't think I would because of the fact I'd won
01:19before I thought it would be highly unlikely but I was already delighted to
01:27actually even be there again I was like I was saying earlier I was so heartened
01:33that a difficult and serious record could would even be in the nominees and be
01:41getting that exposure I was so delighted that that that was happening so I I hadn't
01:48really gone down the route thinking or will I win or won't I it was more just
01:53the fact that it was there already it's not always that that I make an album that
01:59I feel that there was nothing else I could have done to move made any better
02:03that's a rare feeling I had I had that feeling with this record I knew that what
02:09my original intention had been my original goal I had met and and gone beyond it
02:16was better than I even could have hoped for it to have been and realized all of
02:21my ambitions for it and and so I've actually found that then for the rest of
02:31the world to not the rest of the world is not as grand as that but but for
02:35instance in Britain to the Mercury prize to choose this album has the one they
02:41give the award to this year I find extremely strengthening and actually
02:47very hopeful for music in general and I don't want to sound like I'm blowing my
02:51own trumpet but I'm talking about in terms of it's a it's a difficult and
02:55serious record about real and tangible things that are happening in the world
03:00today that I think of great importance and need to be spoken about and so the
03:05fact that people are actually welcoming that and supporting it I find
03:09extremely hopeful it was quite nervous for me actually I I'd I hadn't really been
03:17through the whole award ceremony and the performance like that before and it's
03:23it's quite a different thing and and also I think that over the years the award is
03:28gained in stature and it's now taken very seriously as an artistic recognition
03:34an artistic award so it was it it was something that meant a lot to me so yeah
03:40I felt nervous and excited and actually enjoyed the whole evening really well
03:48obviously at the time winning on September the 11th 2001 in the grand scheme of
03:54things it meant nothing because the whole world was just in shock what was
03:59happening in in America so everything else paled in significance I I barely recall
04:06it as as as being a time when I actually recognized that I'd won the Mercury
04:12Prize and it didn't really didn't really sink in
04:17having been there on the night from watching the night's performances I
04:22probably would have said everything everything because I really enjoyed the
04:27song that they play I have yet I've yet to hear the rest their album in fact I
04:33said to the singer that night I must go and buy your record so and based on that
04:38evening I thought their performance was really good
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