It wasn’t amazing, but it wasn’t rubbish. It was great to see the post-Covid awards go live again on 5 December 2021. But the live audience at the Coventry Building Society Arena were noisy, kept interrupting, and almost spoilt it.
If you don’t know, the Mobos or Music of Black Origin Awards celebrate hip hop, jazz, soul, Afrobeat, reggae, RnB, rap etc. New genres like “grime” and “drill” are added all the time. The emphasis is on the UK– but global artists feature too. And you dont have to be black to get an award for music of a black origin.
The Mobos are now – like me – 25 years old. The Mobos are well established and starting to get on a bit.
This year opened fiery, with Bree arriving on a fierce motorbike. But the main comperes had awkward chemistry; the not so fab three were Instagram star Munya Chiwawa, Little Mix’s Leigh-Anne Pinnock and comedian Eddy Kadi.
For me, Pa Salieu stole the show. He played “Bad and “My Family”, was joined by Backroad Gee and brought on the Gambian masquerade ‘kankurang’ to give us a taste of African tradition.
Ghetts won best male act and it was well deserved. His latest ground-breaking album Conflict of Interest added to years of service to the industry.
Nsg brought life to the party, performing their amazing single “Shake It”.
We witnessed the amazing Enny perform “Peng Black Girls” with the beautiful vocalist Ibellah.
The unstoppable Little Simz got the award for best female artist. Yep, she’s been putting the work in – and even featured in the last season of Top Boy.
One major false note was Central Cee getting the newcomer award. Is he really so new? As he himself said when accepting the award: “I am not a newcomer though, but I’ll accept it nether the less”. Why? I asked myself.
Another major problem was that seven awards including album and drill act of the year were rushed through before the finale. This was confusing and devalued these awards.
And a few couldn’t – maybe wouldn’t – pick up their awards. Skepta won best Grime Artist – but didn’t sho
w to collect. Nor did Wizkid, winner of best African Act by Dj abrantee, or Cleo Sol for her soul.
Still we saw Ms Banks and Steff London perform “Dip” with a remix; we got a reflective performance from the deep rapper Potter Payper; and we indulged in Tems from Nigeria.
And for the oldies, boxer Frank Bruno won Mobo inspiration award. Frank has gone through a lot and is still fighting. Look it up.
Ending the show for the year, song of the year was won by “Body Remix” by Tion Wayne ft Russ Millions. Ghetts hit the closing performance.
Basically the Mobos were the product of a half-born year. They were rushed, chaotic and the audience seemed to be freaking out rather than celebrating.
It’s not a return to normal, but not grim music lockdown either. Give us a year to breathe properly and I think the Mobos could return renewed to surprise us again.
