About

Speech was born Todd Thomas in Milwaukee,  Wisconsin. The youngest of parents Robert & Patricia Thomas. He grew up on two sides of life: the ghetto of Milwaukee (one of the nation’s roughest cities for African Americans) and (Wauwatosa) Milwaukee’s suburbia.  Speech learned how to draw from the pains and beauty of both. He would absorb the plights of his people and the retreat of a middle-class black boy in a primarily white neighborhood. He lost his grandmother to a heart attack and his older brother, Terrence Thomas to an Asthma attack within the same week, and through spirituality, learned to recalibrate his inner anger through dynamic music. To celebrate the lives of those he lost, he coined his sound “life music”. Speech wrote the hit song Tennessee as a dedication to his grandmother and brother. In the early nineties, Speech and his mother started the Terrence Thomas Scholarship and to date, the scholarship has raised over a million dollars helping young black students further their educations.

Speech started and produced the hip-hop group,  Arrested Development. Based in Georgia, from humble and rural beginnings; they became a pioneering force in the music world. Arrested Development received two Grammy Awards (Best new artists & Best rap single 1993) for the album, 3 years, 5 months, and 2 days in the life of…” Their second album “Zingalamaduni” was met with critical acclaim and was also nominated for a GRAMMY award. 

In 1995, the group disbanded, and Speech signed a solo record deal with EMI. His first single “Like Marvin Gaye Said” shot to #1 on the Japanese Tokio 100 charts for 7 consecutive weeks. Speech has released 5 solo albums since, all of which have spawned Top 10 hit singles in Japan. His album “1998 Hoopla” and Spiritual People” (2000) were certified gold. “Spiritual People” was awarded the Best black music album of the year 2000  by the acclaimed ADLIB magazine. Speech supported each album with sold-out tours. 

Speech has also toured as a solo performer with the United States Vice President Al Gore, First Lady Hillary Clinton,  Herbie Hancock, Chaka Khan, Youssou N’dour, James Brown, Parliament-Funkadelic, Jason Mraz, Hootie & the Blowfish, and The Roots. 

In 2020 Speech partnered with Resonant Pictures and Pipeline Entertainment to release the full-length documentary “16 Bars” where Speech goes into a maximum-security jail to write music with inmates. This stirring documentary has won numerous film festival awards and is now available through Lightyear Entertainment on streaming platforms worldwide.

Info

PO BOX 1539
Fayetteville, GA 30214