The public library in Edmonton, a neighborhood in North London with one of the country’s highest unemployment rates, is located in a shopping mall. Not a glittering row of chain stores, but an untrendy plot with a farmer’s market selling apples, pig trotters and pans. The library itself has a wide assortment of romance novels with titles such as ‘‘In the Master’s Bed’’ and ‘‘Hot Summer Nights.’’ Early on a Friday in January, it was packed with children studying, an elderly couple on a computer and, at a table near the back, a group of local toughs, the kind you wouldn’t want to meet in a pub.
Benjamin Clementine, a strikingly elegant 27-year-old musician and poet, towered above them all. Early last year, he released his debut album, ‘‘At Least for Now,’’ which earned rapturous reviews and recently won the coveted Mercury Prize. As his following has begun to grow — word has traveled fast of his performances, which are unlike anything I’ve heard before — so too has his origin myth. As the story goes, Clementine left Edmonton for Paris, where he was homeless until he was discovered busking in the streets, quickly signed to a label and sent back to London to record an album that would later win one of the U.K.’s top music awards. While it is a seductive narrative, one of those rags-to-riches journeys none of us can resist, it’s only partly true.
By DAVID BYRNE
Source New York Times
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