8/6/2016

Benjamin Clementine: 'I sang on the Paris metro like I was playing in a stadium' | Music | The Guardian

Benjamin Clementine: 'I sang on the Paris metro

like I was playing in a stadium'
He spent two years busking for food on the streets of Paris before being sig ned to a major record label. The
sing er-song writer talks about his journey from playing pavements to being nominated for the Mercury
Prize
Tshepo Mokoena
Wednesday 18 November 2015 19.02GMT

eople cant take their eyes o Benjamin Clementine. On stage its because hes thundering
out melodies on a piano, singing intensely with his eyes closed. Ostage its because hes
strikingly tall, with a shock of hair combed skywards and cheekbones that have been
described as planar, chiselled and simply impossible. Today, the looks silently cast his way
may have more to do with the fact that were huddled around the corner of a table in Edmonton
Green library, and in conversation at a borderline unacceptable volume.
You see that man? he asks, gesturing towards an elderly man wearing a at cap and shuing
towards one of the ction bookshelves across the room. Ive known him since I was very little.
He used to come every day. He doesnt really talk to anyone, but I remember him very well.
Were in north London, where his oft-retold, slightly mythologised story begins. On paper, it
reads like a novel: a young man leaves home, deserting a strained relationship with his parents.
He stops o at a friends at and decides to drop everything, catching the next ight to Paris.
There he sleeps rough and in hostels for a couple of years, earning money busking on
underground trains and at parties. Suddenly, he appears barefoot and unknown, singing
breathlessly about loneliness on Jools Holland in October 2013, and is signed to Virgin/EMI.
It wasnt quite as lmic as that. Aged 19, Clementine says he left London with 60 to his name,
and that was only enough for the ticket to Paris. Not the bus to Gatwick airport. I had to beg
the bus driver to let me on, by telling him that my parents lived in France and that they were ill.
His parents, in fact, have stayed in London but Clementine grows quiet when I ask about them
and simply says that he keeps in touch with his eldest brother. Of his rst night in Paris, he only
remembers lights a lot of lights. I felt like Id taken acid or something as he wandered the
city on his own. It took about three years for him to progress from busking to playing bars and
parties, then releasing EPs on a Parisian indie label. In 2014 Clementine joined EMI.
What does he make of constantly retelling a story thats turned into autobiographical Chinese
whispers? It is boring and frustrating because I want to talk about my songs. His voice drops
slightly: Sometimes it feels like my story overshadows my music.
Weve been talking for the better part of an hour, and for the rst time Clementine sounds
despondent. He says hes extremely grateful for the media attention hes picked up over the past
two years, but nds the obsession with his background mystifying. Luckily, as shown on his
Mercury prize-nominated debut album At Least for Now, he has the musical chops to support
the weight of his life story.
With this sort of career, you need determination. Youve got to sacrice a lot of things: family,
friends not that I had any and he now he chuckles but you sacrice everything. I dedicate
all my time to music. And Im glad that its paying o in some ways. Its not the easiest journey
to make, from self-taught musician and self-described loner to a critical darling selling out gigs
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/nov/18/benjamin-clementine-i-sang-on-the-paris-metro-like-i-was-playing-in-a-stadium

1/3

8/6/2016

Benjamin Clementine: 'I sang on the Paris metro like I was playing in a stadium' | Music | The Guardian

across Europe and the UK.

Clementine, whos 26, doesnt make music that ts the twentysomething trends of the year.
There arent signs of hook-laden trap, 90s-inspired indie or synth-led and multi-genre pop aimed
at the charts. Rather, his emotive piano lines overlaid with tremulous strings and pitterpattering drums sound resolutely vintage. His lyrics are the focus. You can hear him cram every
last word into songs Quiver a Little and Nemesis (sample lyric: if chewing was to show you how
much I cared / Id probably be wearing dentures by now), scurrying over their verses while the
instrumentation almost plays catchup. There are echoes of French-language chansons Eric
Satie, Lo Ferr, recent collaborator Charles Aznavour as well as nods to my heroes: Nick
Cave, Tom Waits, Nina Simone.
His music, he says, is me, speaking directly to you. Ive learned in the little bit of my life so far
that you cant fool people. And so I only tell people what I think about: my ambitions, my
dreams, what inspires me. Though soft-spoken, hes playful and self-aware, observing that how
hes often found wailing about my loneliness in song. For all the brooding photoshoots and
music videos, you can see the charisma and guts that would have made Clementine risk
humiliation every day and busk for the money to buy dinner.
He doesnt view his professional performances now as any dierent from the Bob Marley covers
he belted out on the Paris metro, accompanying himself on acoustic guitar. I went round that
train playing as if I was playing in a stadium. Ive always performed this way. I went on the
streets and played, and I could still go and play on the streets today if I felt like it. Vulnerability
underpins it all, and his openness draws listeners into his stories.
He insists that hes not a good pianist and not a good singer but a storyteller the latter I see
rsthand when he whispers through a cryptic tale about why he cant bear to watch Nina
Simone documentary What Happened, Miss Simone? because something about its intimacy
scared me too much. He can tell the stories of others, too, variously quoting (and sometimes
misquoting) Benjamin Franklin, Georges Brassens, Jimi Hendrix and Abraham Lincoln in order
to make a point. I know, deep down, that what makes my music what it is are my words, he
says. It always starts from me wanting to say something. Once Ive run out of things to say, Ill
be done.
The Mercury Music prize is announced on Friday 20 November. Benjamin Clementine plays the
Quays theatre, Salford, on 1 December.
More features

Topics
Mercury prize 2015
Save for later Article saved
Reuse this content

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/nov/18/benjamin-clementine-i-sang-on-the-paris-metro-like-i-was-playing-in-a-stadium

2/3

8/6/2016

Benjamin Clementine: 'I sang on the Paris metro like I was playing in a stadium' | Music | The Guardian

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/nov/18/benjamin-clementine-i-sang-on-the-paris-metro-like-i-was-playing-in-a-stadium

3/3