The prestigious 25th Mercury album of the year award was won by London grime artist Skepta last night taking home the £25,000 prize.
This probably isn’t the sort of article you’d expect to see on ICM but Skepta seeing off the likes of Radiohead, The 1975 and the late David Bowie, demonstrates how grime music is acquiring a wider influence within the music industry. And for that reason we take our hats off and respect him for his music ideology.
Skepta (real name Joseph Adenuga) released his fourth album Konnichiwa on his own independent label Boy Better Know which he co-founded with his brother Jamie (JME) and included the top 40 entries That’s Not Me, Shutdown and Man.
During the build up to the announcement, Jarvis Cocker hinted at Bowie, but eventually noted that David Bowie would be looking down in approval on the winner. Skepta’s acceptance speech was sketchy at best, clearly overwhelmed at receiving the award, but eventually explained he was “trying to do this music stuff and work it out for so long… I was like’ let’s do it for ourselves’. All these songs, we’ve travelled the world – no record label, nothing. We just did this for us but the love is very appreciated.” Joined on the stage by his parents and an ensemble of collaborators, friend and family there was something very humbling about his surprised state as the amount the award meant to him was clearly evident.
Unsurprisingly, there was some backlash on social media at the surprise of a grime artist winning the album of the year (despite Dizzee Rascal winning in 2003). Many people were disappointed that Bowie didn’t become the first posthumously named winner, whilst others believed that there should have been a different winner.
Despite this Skepta winning album of the year will undeniably increase record sales for Konnichiwa and continue shaping his grime legacy; whilst sustaining his ethos of creating the music he wants to make, and most importantly, making it the way he wants to make it.
