Out of desperation, after a revelatory visit to Sacré Coeur, he tossed his grey Kangol cap on the ground and started singing a cappella. Down and out in London and Paris: a sequel. Aged 18, he relocated to the Place de Clichy, sleeping on the streets. He left school at 16, had a bust-up with his family and ended up in Camden, effectively homeless. Clementine was the youngest of five, born to parents of Ghanaian descent. Come and see Benjamin Clementine at Observer Ideasīiographical details then trickled out.

Not long after he was picked up by a major label, Virgin EMI. People searched for a shorthand to describe what he sounded like and a consensus was soon arrived at: 'If Nina Simone had been a man.' Backstage, Paul McCartney, a fellow guest, made him promise he'd keep at it the following week, Clementine was the most shared artist on Spotify. But his power and presence were unmistakable as he sat barefoot and alone at a grand piano. The skittish host introduced him as having been found busking on the Paris metro and that made sense: his singing was raw, his breathing so erratic that he looked like he might pass out. He first appeared last October, playing a song, Cornerstone, on Later. 'Put pianos everywhere!' he says triumphantly.Ĭlementine has a reputation that exceeds his output, just two EPs, seven tracks really. It would give Edmontonians, as he calls them, an opportunity that he only belatedly had. One day Clementine wants to buy a piano – 'no, two or three pianos' – and put them in the concourse for anyone to play. We're in the market now a hungover Monday morning where business is slow everywhere but Lidl and Iceland. If you live in central London, that's probably fine for you, but in places like Edmonton, where you're almost out of sight of London, you've got to pay more and more to get into central London. 'Why are there cabs in central London but not here? And if they're going to be here, they should be cheaper. 'Why are there not cabs in Edmonton?' Clementine asks, his voice low and rumbling, scarcely distinguishable from the traffic. As we skirt a roundabout, he is urgently explaining all that is beautiful and problematic about the scruffy, clearly deprived neighbourhood where he was raised. It turns out that the 25-year-old singer-songwriter doesn't do small talk he is either forcefully opinionated or dauntingly silent. He's hard to miss: a rangy 6ft 3in, cheekbones like violent slashes, hair up and backcombed into a Frank Gehry-esque swoop. I 'm due to meet Benjamin Clementine at the covered market in Edmonton Green, north London, but I bump into him as we both leave the train station.

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