MC Speech's Forward Development

by Cyclone Wehner

In the early 90s an eloquent MC known as Speech guided the organic Southern hip-hop posse Arrested Development to the top of the charts with hit singles like "Tennessee", "People Everyday" and "Mr Wendal." The Atlanta-based collective even took out a Grammy-winning album, "3 Years, 5 Months And 2 Days In The Life Of....".

Unhappily, though, their success was not to endure. Things started to fall apart around the time of their second album, "Zingalamaduni", in 1994. The band eventually went their separate ways. Speech briefly surfaced two years later to tell his personal story on his underrated eponymous solo debut. Now, he is back in the spotlight with "Hoopla".

What happened between albums is that Speech, aka Todd Thomas, faced a corporate mess. His US label, EMI, folded, leaving him in contractual limbo. Not that he is at all bitter. Speech realised that in the interim he could disseminate his music in the Asian market, where he first released "Hoopla" last year. Indeed, 1998 Hoopla reached number three on the Japanese pop charts (Speech's debut had hit the top). Speech is working on another album, tentatively entitled "Spiritual People", for Japan as he speaks. Clearly Japan's hip-hoppers are not as fickle as their US counterparts.

"Hoopla" continues Arrested Development's acknowledgement of an Afro-centric cultural history. It delivers spirited messages encouraging self-knowledge and a positive outlook on life -- a far cry from the rampant materialism exemplified by gangsta rap and jiggy playaristic hip-hop alike. Yet Hoopla is also less overtly political than Speech's past efforts. This time both the personal and spiritual come even closer to the fore in his music.

Speech views this latest album as being a more disciplined and mature effort than his first. 'I think this album is a lot better,' he says openly. 'I think that it's more cohesive. With this record, it's all part of the same record, you know. I think with my first solo album, I was going in so many different directions -- and I personally love my first one -- but it threw a lot of people off, and I can understand why in retrospect.'

One of the numbers that immediately jumps out is Speech's resonant (and Fugee-like) cover of Bob Marley's "Redemption Song". 'I really wanted to do that song. I used to sing the song as an encore at my concerts a lot and I got such a great response from it -- I sang it all over the place and, basically, I decided to put it on this record. I was a little nervous about it at first because it's such a sacred song in some ways in the music business, but I really felt that the song relates to my life. I've always felt personal about the song and I really don't look at it as someone else's song. I look at it as something that I surely could have done because of the lyrics and because of what it means.'

In many respects Arrested Development ushered in the new soulful hip-hop sonic textures that find heightened expression in the work of The Roots, The Fugees and Erykah Badu, among many others. Does Speech feel that he and Arrested Development have been given full props for their influence on the neo-soul movement? 'I think I have to some extent, you know,' he responds. 'I think that Arrested Development have been recognised throughout the industry as the beginning of what they now call the "New Age soul", and I think that's just really a great honour and we've definitely had the props for it. Arrested Development is a group who are respected by music lovers, the industry and just the average fan alike, and it's been an incredible thing just to see the respect that the group gets.'

In explaining the group's demise, Speech refers to the group's immaturity and inability to deal with the attractions of money and pressures of fame. 'You know, everybody had their own lawyer and everyone had their own business manager,' he says. 'Everybody was thinking about money and not about the music -- and so it took its biggest toll on us right there.'

For Speech himself, the fragmentation of Arrested Development culminated in a period of very real depression and profound soul-searching. 'I lost my zeal for life in general,' he confides. 'It wasn't like I wanted to kill myself or anything, but I just didn't understand what life was about.'

Speech found strength instead in his newfound Christianity and family life -- themes that imbue "Hoopla". 'I think this album was the first time I was really able to look at things differently.'

Speech has also made a bid to his own self-determination by further developing his production company, Vagabond, which is home to the punk-rock hip-hoppers El Pus and neo-soulstress Nadirah. Nevertheless, Speech hints that Arrested Development may well reform for a special reunion album at some stage. 'You never know. I do know that we have been talking again this year. For the last five years we hadn't talked to each other at all. We hadn't really been communicating and this year we've been talking again and we actually did a show earlier this year for the first time in five years. So to be honest, it has been the best possibility in five years.'

"Hoopla" is out through Mushroom.