South Londoner Debbie Ehirim’s voice carries an innate musical fragility that you can’t help but become enveloped in.
Surrendering to Ehirim’s enthralling sonic paradox – a soulfully assertive yet beautifully understated honeyed tone that is complemented by the unbridled intimacy of her lyrics, you become a bystander privileged and compelled to witness intimate moments of reflection or process that feel like a truly private stream of consciousness.
In 2020, after abandoning a potential career in finance to pursue music full time, Debbie signed to Universal Music Group’s frontline label 0207 Def Jam records (a UK outpost of the 1984 brainchild of American hip-hop legends Rick Rubin and Russell Simmons) fronted by Ghanaian-British industry innovators, seasoned music executives and fraternal twins Alec and Alex Boateng.
"It was either going to be picking a career path that maybe won't make me happy but would make me a lot of money, or picking a career path that maybe won’t make me a lot of money but would make me very happy.", says Debbie.
Officially assuming respective co-presidencies in 2020, (appointing rapper Wretch 32 as the record label’s creative director), and armed with a equally revered reputation of industry prowess backed by a history of worldwide music campaigns for artists like Skepta, Burna Boy and Stormzy, the Boateng's unyielding dedication to unapologetically cultivate and globally champion a uniquely British musical identity under the Def Jam umbrella goes beyond cooperate agenda or commercial investment.
Debbie's debut single Is This Real Love? was released in November 2021. The stripped vocal track questions the legitimacy of a romantic relationship. Reassured by superficial displays of commitment, empty words received as absolute validation, and Instagram declarations of devotion glorified as the modern fairytale equivalent, Debbie’s lyrics indicate a façade of true intimacy. This was the song that introduced me to Debbie and she’s been on my playlist ever since.
In November 2021, the single was remixed with the addition of US R&B artist Lucky Daye, adding a male partner’s perspective to the track. Each side of the story differs in the details, but both are united in unresolved insecurity.
Since then, Debbie has released six highly successful singles and was a key collaborator on Stormzy’s critically acclaimed 2023 album This Is What I Mean, co-writing a total of six tracks. The 22-year-old is a fond and trusted creative partner of the British rapper who champions her talent at every opportunity.
How did this relationship happen?
"In lockdown I had been talking to different industry people," she says. "I think there was a buzz about me in 2020 in the industry (I'm not sure why but there just was) and the buzz had seeped into Stormzy’s team. Alec – who is now the head of Def Jam, and I had a meeting, and, in this meeting, he said that Stormzy had heard some of my songs and he really wanted to work with me. I just thought he was being polite. I remember he showed me the texts for real. It was insane.
"You know how lockdown was up and down (sometimes we were out, sometimes we were in), one of the times we were out we jumped in the studio, and we made it give it to the water. We wrote that in our first session. Then we had another one and wrote songs that weren't on the album. The next one we wrote was Firebabe. From then, we realised that we were quite good working together, so I went to one of his writing camps and wrote some other songs there too and they all ended up on the album."
The music Debbie and Stormzy make together evidences a powerful musical chemistry that is raw, inhibited and unafraid of vulnerability. This relationship is defined by its musical output but runs much deeper. Stormzy described the session that made love song Firebabe as "a session he'd (I’ll) never forget, for the rest of his (my) life".
Can she define this musical chemistry?
"I think maybe because he has a sick way of calming a room," she says. "Sometimes before a session he’ll pray so when you have that energy walking into a room ego is put aside, any sort of shyness is put aside – there is no such thing as a bad idea so it means that you can just give your all and feel comfortable doing that. Maybe that’s why."
How does all of this feel?
"I don’t think it’s sunk in yet," she says. "When you strip back names and positions you are in, all the titles and the magnitude of what you are doing, really it’s just two people in a room with a piano, singing a song. But I don’t think that magnitude has sunk in because it’s like "Oh, we just made a song" which is what I’ve been doing for years."
"Sometimes when I do get a glimpse of how big this is I feel so honoured (I’m sure he knows so many talented writers) and so grateful that he would pick me to help him with his art, with his journey, with his album. Gob smacked. Yeah, it feels amazing."
Does all of this feel like validation? Confirmation that music was the right thing to pursue?
"Yeah definitely. It makes you feel like you are on the right path, doing something right," she says. "Also, it's like I feel like I need to make sure throughout this whole process - because I don’t know what next year is saying, nobody knows what’s coming next - I try to stay as present as possible and not let moments slip by. When you do amazing things all the time, it’s easy to not see them as amazing or not deep how phenomenal something is."
