The 2021 Mobo Awards were held last night on the 5th of December at the Coventry Building Society arena. The award show celebrating music of black culture kicked off at 8 pm but 5 awards were awarded prior to the show. Guvna B picked up the gospel act of the year, Central Cee the drill act of the year, Shenseea the best reggae act, Jae5 the best producer and Sons of Kemet the best Jazz act of the year.
The night’s show was kicked off by a performance by Mobo nominee Bree runway who performed her track “Hot Hot”. Ghetts own the first award of the night, Best male, a very deserving winner who is a forefather of the UK rap scene and has been a part of the scene for well over 10 years. His project Conflict of interest was released this year and charted at 2nd in the official charts the legendary rappers highest-ever chart position. Little Simz picked up Best female for a year that saw her release her album Sometimes I Might Be Introvert, a project that gained Simz her highest chart position at 4th.
Central Cee was the only artist to win multiple awards, picking up best newcomer alongside his best drill award. The rappers year has seen him go from somewhat an unknown to one of the biggest rappers not only in the UK but globally with the rapper and his team making an impact globally with Central having appeared on tracks alongside French and Italian artists. Best hip hop was won by the biggest duo in the UK D-block Europe the duo picked up the award just a few days after their sold-out shows at the London 02, another artist who recently performed at their headline sold-out show in the 02 was best African music act recipient Wizkid who also took home the award for the best international act. Grime legend Skepta picked up the best grime act while Cleo Sol picked up the award for best R&b/soul act.
With so many impressive albums coming out o the UK in 2021 the award was anyways to call, but the UK rap heavyweight Dave snatched it up for his project We’re all alone in this together, a project that sat at number 1 and sold a staggering 72,000 copies in its first week of release. The song of the year went to Tion Wayne and Russ millions ”Body” remix, the record-breaking track helped the duo gain their first number 1 singles as well as the first number for the UK drill genre, the track didn’t only dominate the UK sitting at number 1 for three consecutive weeks but went viral across TikTok making it a global phenom. M1llionz video for “lagga” earned the northwest Birmingham rapper his first award.
Away from music Chunk and Yung filly picked up the award for best media personalities, Michael Ward won the best performance in a tv show/film for his performance as Franklyn in the BBC drama ‘Small Axe’, and Boxing legend Frank Bruno was the inspiration award honouree.
The UK music scene and the black music scene in particular has had an incredible year, and this was all on show at this year’s Mobos, performance from Coventry local Pa salieu, Ghetts, NSH and more were just an example of the raw talent that this country and the scene in general holds.
The award show was live-streamed on Youtube and is available to watch in full here:
