The 2021 Grm rated awards took place last night celebrating the best of the black British music scene. The show was held virtually for the second year running and saw 8 winning acts from the 10 different categories.
This year’s awards show was hosted by British model Jordan Dunn and comedian Michael Dapaah, the latter stepped in to replace Idris Elba ho had to pull out “Due to circumstances out of my control”. The stage saw performances from Potter Payper who performed his track “Frank White”, Tion Wayne who performed a medley of his hits “Where were they”, “WOW” and “Body”, Pa Salieu and Backroad Gee with “My family”, Enny who performed “Peng black girls”, and Heartless Crew who picked up the Legacy award at this year’s awards show.
Central Cee picked up his first award of the night for ‘Breakthrough Artist of the year’ who released his debut mixtape which debuted at 2nd on the official charts, as well as this the rapper released a number of singles and amassed well over 200 million youtube views with 5 million monthly Spotify listeners. These impressive achievements helped the west Londoner pick up two awards at last nights awards show with the 23-year-old taking home ‘Male artist of the year’ as well as ‘Breakthrough of the year’.
Tion Wayne and Russ picked up the second award of the night ‘Video of the year’, for their video for their chart-topping single “Body’. The video shot by Wowa currently sits on 55 million views 5 months after its release. Tion and Russ’s hit ‘Body’ helped the duo pick up their second award of the night for ‘Track of the year’, their number one single was a record-breaker after becoming the first drill song to ever go number 1 in the UK charts and stayed in that position for 3 consecutive weeks.
Potter Payper added a rated award to his list of achievements he has accomplished since his release from jail just over a year ago, the 28-year-old picked up the award for ‘Mixtape of the year’ for his release Training day 3. ‘Album of the year’ went to Ghetts for his mercury prize nominated album Conflict of interest which debuted at 2nd on the official charts.
‘Female artist of the year’ went to Walsall’s Jorja Smith who released her project Be right back this year as well as appearing on a number of impressive features. M1onthebeat picked up ‘Producer of the year’ the UK drill pioneer working with the likes of Headie One, K- trap and Drake in the last year. Charlie sloth picked up ‘Rdio DJ of the year’ while Niko Omilana won ‘Personality of the year’ after having an impressive year that saw his party The Niko defence league (NDL) achieving fifth place in the London mayoral election gaining over 50,000 votes.
