The World Is My Block

ESTELLE



She's Black, she's British, she's beautiful...fresh, talented and unpretentious. The UK industry are still fighting to digest her and trying to pigeon-hole her (like they generally do with ALL Black artists at some point - or any musician that doesn't fit directly into their musical tick-boxes), but she's shun through, on a new label stateside...yadayadaya - everyone knows the Chicken & Roscoes John Legend/Kanye story and I'm sure most of her press over here has been explaining and defending why she took herself to America - as if it isn't obvious, to do her job properly!

And now she's celebrating her SECOND week at number 1 in the UK charts with American Boy, while celebrating the launch of her album, Shine. Everyone should go and buy it. Support it. ASAP. She's making moves, and she's doing it without seemingly compromising her artistry or her identity - well, not TOO much anyways.

I haven't listened to the LP yet, but while I'm not sure if I can dig the comparisons to Lauryn Hill I personally liked her from that Blak Twang tune back in the day - that no one seems to remember when I mention it - and 1980s was a big tune, even though I can't directly identify to living in a yard with 345 family members, a dead neighbour and a poo-ing dog. Sasaperilla was part of the childhood though.

Anyway, let me stop digressing. Go and buy it, or download it legally. We've already waited for the US to co-sign her before she'd been embraced fully - lets be the ones who help keep her up there and help her rep the flag for the UK.