Celebrating 20 Years of Imogen Heap’s Speak for Yourself

By Riley Watkins 

Music Journalist 

Two decades after its release, Imogen Heap’s “Headlock” has reached Billboard’s Hot 100 for the first time ever. The sudden rise in popularity for the track comes from the song’s usage in TikTok edits of the videogame Mouthwashing. This is the first solo song from Heap to crack the list, which is an unneeded milestone for an already illustrious career. 

“Headlock” is the opening track on Heap’s 2005 masterpiece Speak for Yourself, an album with an industry-wide reach of influence. Heap’s importance to the pop music sphere is often overlooked, but a number of tracks on this album establish her as an essential listen for anyone looking to understand the current state of music. 

One genre that owes Speak for Yourself a massive thanks is cloud-rap. Cloud-rap is a style of hip-hop defined by its inception on the internet and ethereal beats. Widely considered to be pioneered by rappers Lil B and A$AP Rocky and producer Clams Casino, all three have an interesting relationship with Heap’s “Just for Now”. 

Lil B’s 2009 album 6 Kiss samples the track on two separate songs, both of which are the rapper’s top streamed songs. “B.O.R. (Birth of Rap)” samples the song quite literally with not much variation from the original. The second track on 6 Kiss, “I’m God”, is produced by Clams Casino, who impressively chops up “Just for Now” to change the wording and subsequent meaning of the original song’s lyrics. 

The “I’m God” instrumental became iconic after also being utilized on A$AP Rocky’s “I Smoked My Brain Away”. Rocky used another Imogen Heap sample on the track “Angels” off the deluxe edition of LONG.LIVE.A$AP in 2013. This time Rocky sampled the cascading vocal intro on “Headlock”. Clams Casino later released the “I’m God” instrumental by itself in 2020, becoming his most streamed song. 

Imogen Heap’s first major claim to fame was “Hide and Seek”. The song has no instrumental, making way for Heap’s haunting vocoded vocals, with lyrics recalling the break up of her parents and subsequent splitting of her family. The track was initially popularized after its use in the season 2 finale of the TV show The O.C. when Marissa Cooper shoots Trey Atwood. 

The dramatics of this bit from The O.C. were poked fun at during a Lonely Island SNL short in 2007 titled “The Shooting AKA Dear Sister”. The skit starred Andy Samberg, Bill Hader, Shia LaBeouf, Kristen Wigg and a few others all shooting each other with the iconic “mmm whatcha say” from “Hide and Seek” playing each time a gun is fired.  

The Shooting AKA Dear Sister

The “mmm whatcha say” popularity skyrocketed after Jason Derulo sampled “Hide and Seek” in his 2010 hit “Whatcha Say”. The song uses the heartbreaking ending of the song as its chorus, completely altering the meaning of the lyrics. Despite Derulo initially facing some backlash from Heap fans for bludgeoning the song’s initial purpose, the track still spent a week at number one on the Billboard Hot 100. 

One artist with an impactful relationship with Speak for Yourself  is Ariana Grande. While Grande was still a rising star at Nickelodeon, she posted a cover of “Just for Now” to her YouTube channel using a vocal loop pedal that was popularized by Heap herself. In the description of the video, Grande says, “I love Imogen Heap with all my heart.” 

“Just For Now” – Ariana Grande ( Imogen Heap cover )

Later in Grande’s career she covered “Goodnight and Go” on her album Sweetener. While the chorus and bridge are melodically faithful to the original, Grande switches up the lyrics for the first verse. Heap’s lyrics are about the earth-shattering feeling of a developing crush, with a particular highlight being the lines, “And then I’m left in bits, recovering tectonic tremblings, You get me every time”. Grande chooses instead to write about the more sexual aspects of a relationship. 

There are a few other songs from Speak for Yourself that haven’t yet received their deserved flowers. While not every track will have a random meteoric rise like “Headlock”, there are others that stand out for their electronic craftsmanship and clever songwriting. “Have You Got It in You”, “Closing In” and “Clear the Area” are particularly catchy. 

My personal favorite is the closing track, “The Moment I Said It”. One of the simplest tracks musically, an arpeggiating piano line intensifies throughout the runtime until tripping over a faint kick drum and dramatically ceasing in the finale.  

Lyrically the track can be interpreted in a number of ways, all of which see Heap detailing the story of soothing a disturbed loved one. Lines like “Lead in your eyelids, Bulldozed the life out of me, I know what you’re thinking, But, darling, you’re not thinking straight” are versatile in their ability to describe a multitude of different relationships, making the track extremely relatable. 

Besides maybe “Hide and Seek”, “The Moment I Said It” displays the absolute best of Heap’s ability as a vocalist. It’s especially impressive how Heap incorporates her vocals with her narrative storytelling. As the story of this abusive relationship develops, Heap’s voice rises to a fever pitch portraying her feelings of panic. When she comes in for the second chorus to sing “Mmm, I’ve never seen you like this” she sounds like a tea kettle, reinforcing the song’s anxiety inducing tone.