The spice is right

BY rights, Peppercorn should be very famous. But after nearly ten years in the business, chasing her lifelong dream of becoming a singer, it is only now that she is releasing her debut album.

Sitting in the west London home of her record label's boss, which doubles as his offices, she doesn't seem like a woman who has been battling with ineptitude and ignorance within the music industry for the past decade.

Instead Peppercorn - she got her nickname from her brother who called her Peppercorn Head due to the tight curls of hair on the back of her neck - is a woman brimming with confidence and exuding a laid back, don't-give-a-damn attitude.

Now 30, her years of trying to get her music to the ears of the public but failing because none of them knew how to market a black female singer-songwriter with a guitar, has left her all the more determined rather than wearied by it all.

"I know that some people making records and having successful careers aren't as good as me," she explains. "Even on days when I'd doubt myself I'd still think that I'm not as bad as some people who are allowed careers."

Peppercorn's dogged determination probably stems from her tough upbringing and, more directly, her mother Mary. Born Rosie Molokwu in Western Sahara, Peppercorn was brought up, along with her three older brothers, without a father. He had left the family before Peppercorn was born and to this day she's never met him, mostly because she hasn't wanted to.

"At the end of the day he could have found us but he didn't," she snorts. "We needed clothes for school and I'm sure that if he said he wanted to help I'm sure my mother wouldn't have said no.

"I'm completely indifferent to him. If I heard he'd kicked the bucket it wouldn't bother me. I feel that all the suffering I had was down to his absence and the lack of two wages."

When Peppercorn was still a baby, her mother had to flee the Western Sahara due to the political troubles. Mary spoke no English and her children were French-speaking, but her sons had been born in Britain so she decided to settle in south London.

Peppercorn had a strict upbringing, with her mother adhering to African tradition. She let Peppercorn's brothers do what they wanted while keeping her daughter at home.

"It was a fantastic childhood because she was a fantastic mother, despite having these traditional ideas in her. We used to play like sisters and we still do. Although we didn't have any money, she made it fun."

Peppercorn's dreams of becoming a performer began with a rare viewing of Top Of The Pops on their clapped-out black and white television. There on the flickering screen she saw a beautiful black woman in a glittery gown belting out a song to an adoring audience.

"It took me a long time to get over my mum's idea that an African woman had no chance to express her opinions," says Peppercorn. "But seeing Diana Ross on TV showed me that I could and it made me want to do what she did."

So she asked her mum for a guitar. But knowing Mary wouldn't approve of her ambitions, Peppercorn carried on with her education and even made moves to become a doctor. Half way through her A-levels, however, she quit school to pursue a career as a singer.

Starting out as a backing vocalist, she then moved to New York and began to write her own material. There she secured a deal with EMI-America but the company folded and she found herself on the breadline.

Then five years ago her mother had a heart attack and Peppercorn came home. She went through a number of jobs to support her ill parent but as Mary got better Peppercorn drifted back into music, turning down a girl band but appearing on a number of other artists' records.

She was already fed up with the music business at this point but industry interest in her music grew and before long she was in the middle of a bidding war. She eventually went with BMG subsidiary Arista.

"Initially I wanted to work with an independent label," she says. "But I had a major label talking the talk of an independent and the only advantage they had was more money."

But Peppercorn would spend the next two and a half years waiting for Arista to get their act together and release her material. The problems weren't helped by a high turnover of staff at the time ("Everytime I came in I was talking to a different person.") and also the label's difficulties in deciding how to market this black singer who wielded a guitar.

"I know the difficulty of trying to deal with a black artist that's not doing R&B," concedes Peppercorn. "If you have a boy band there's a route to take. Even if you have a white girl with a guitar it's easier to swallow but get a black girl with a guitar and they scratch their heads."

For a lot of that time Peppercorn was gigging and getting good reviews but her label twice pulled her singles just before they were about to be released. In the end she'd had enough and asked to leave.

Peppercorn's departure was amicable - she still goes out to lunch with the chairman. They even gave her the album they'd been promising to release, which has now been re-jigged with extra tracks and renamed Barefoot from its original title Free Love.

Peppercorn has learnt her lesson and is now on indie label Full On. Already things are happening for the singer. She recently toured with Darius and two of her songs feature on the soundtrack to the forthcoming Sharon Stone film A Different Loyalty. But most of all she's enjoying the relaxed atmosphere and direct approach of her new musical home.

"For me it's been a long time getting to a point where I'm happy with the people I'm working with," she says. "I like this label because they're a bit mad. I don't like stability and people who are boring which is the way the music industry is now. It's not funky any more."

l Peppercorn's debut album Barefoot is out now.