I really wanted to just do and leave, but now I’m starting to get the whole feeling,” he says when we meet him a few days before his last show. Now 27, Clementine has performed at Burberry runway shows and just finished a sold-out residency in New York City. The agent introduced Clementine to his now-manager, who helped record Clementine’s Cornerstone (2013) and Glorious You (2014) EPs, until signing with Capitol, Virgin EMI, and Barclay. It might seem like a stroke of luck that an agent happened to attend one of his later performances, but to Clementine, everything happens for a reason he had been busking for years, becoming somewhat of a cult icon on Parisian streets, and growing up, he taught himself to play the instruments he now knows (guitar, piano, drums, bass, among others) and studied literature on his own (the public library was his sanctuary). Three years later, at age 19, he moved to Paris alone, where he lived on the streets and sang in metro stations and pubs until he could afford a bunk at a hostel in a 10-person room. The boy slowly embarked on a journey toward discovering himself and his independence. In no chronological order, At Least For Now pieces together the story of a boy who had hardly strayed outside of his neighborhood of Edmonton, East London, yet decided to leave home at the age of 16. On his debut album At Least For Now, released last year and winner of the U.K.’s acclaimed Mercury Prize, Clementine showcases songs like “Edmonton,” on which his deep voice croons, “Oh how swallow is to hunger / As a pigeon to my Trafalgar … Edmonton / Will we change … I ain’t talking about a revolution / just a simple hello friend, will do.” Although he speaks softly and slowly, and at times struggles to fill the void between songs during intimate performances (he looks at the audience, chuckles, says “hello, again,” and returns his gaze to the piano), Clementine’s lifelong troubles seep through his emotive and narrative lyricism.
His lyrics are easily read without accompanying music, and perhaps resonate even more as poetic verse. The way Clementine speaks in conversation mimics the rhythmic and anecdotal nature of his songs, which are first and foremost poetry. “It’s all in New York, the stars are right here. When we landed, I still didn’t see the stars,” he continues. “It was nighttime, I looked down, and I saw lights, so I imagined the stars were falling down from the sky. “You know, when I was coming to New York, through the clouds, I didn’t see any stars,” Benjamin Clementine gently says. GROOMING: YUKIKO TAJIMA AT WM ARTISTS MANAGEMENT USING ORIBE HAIR CARE. BENJAMIN CLEMENTINE IN BROOKLYN, NEW YORK, MARCH 2016.
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