More about: MOBO Awards

It’s a mild day in north London as a row of journalists and plus ones line up outside of Café KOKO. There’s talk of past jobs, gifted champagne and the quick appreciation of a bus driver who briefly pulls over to say, “let’s celebrate love, yeah?” Before people make their way inside to find out who has been nominated for this year’s MOBO Awards.

Over the past 25 years, the MOBO Awards have cemented themselves as one of the highest accolades in entertainment, celebrating artists from the UK and the rest of the world, covering an ever-expanding range of genres and art forms. This year the party comes back to London on 30^th November as the awards will be held at the OVO Arena Wembley.

The announcement begins with a montage showing the history of the MOBO’s, including some of the big names who have been honoured in the past and who have graced the stage to present and accept awards. There’s a laugh around the room as a clip of former England cricketer Chris Lewis is shown where he says he hopes the MOBO’s will be like Coronation Street, “around for another 20 or 30 years”. Founder Kanya King CBE addresses his comments in a short speech, signing off with, “let me just get through this year first!”

Other big faces in the montage include Lauryn Hill, Lenny Henry and Stormzy (to name a few) as well as another quote that provides the foundation for the MOBO’s in their entirety, as a celebration of black music and culture, “when they don’t recognise us, we recognise ourselves”. The whole thing is incredibly moving and instils the room with even more pride than there was to begin with.

Kwame Kwaten takes to the stage, considers two microphones and walks to the one lower down, “this one is my height”. He gives an energetic speech about the MOBO’s, a compilation album backed by Marshall and the two new categories introduced this year, best alternative act and best electronic dance music. The ever-increasing categories in the MOBO’s are a clear reflection of the growth of the awards and the reach that black culture has on music.

“It feels incredible,” Nova Twins said later on, “this album means so much to us and for it to have the life and journey that it’s had this year means everything”. Nova Twins are one of the nominees in the new category of Best Alternative Act. Their recent album Supernova is a perfect blend of noise and rock that has seen them recognised by not just MOBO but the Mercury Awards too. The band have also been selling out venues across the country for the best part of 2022.

“This was a lockdown album so we had loads of time to just sit there and really think about different sonics, buy different pedals and get into vocal production on Logic,” they said before continuing, “we was passing it back to each other and would be like ‘it’s so great’ before passing it again and been like ‘it’s so great’. Every now and then we would take a step back and be like ‘are we sure?’ and then go ‘yes! It’s fucking great!’”.

Other nominees include Aitch, Little Simz, Knucks, M Huncho and Miraa May who have all been put forward for best album. Amongst them is also Kojey Radical with his 2022 release ‘Reason to Smile’. He sat in the front row during the presentation and received huge amounts of praise every time his name was read out as he finds himself also on the shortlist for best male act, best hip hop act and video of the year.

Jazz is a huge part of the awards too and this year amongst the nominees for best jazz act are DoomCannon, Ego Ella May, Ezra Collective, Jas Kyser, Kokoroko and Blue Lab Beats. “It’s a blessed feeling you know,” Blue Lab Beats said, “just the nomination itself is absolutely amazing, we’ve been watching the MOBO’s since we were younger so it’s all amazing”.

Blue Lab receive their nomination after a big year of new music and sold out headline shows. “We did like 6 headline shows in London… One of our big gigs this year was supporting Patrice Rushen here at KOKO. It was a whole sold out thing, we got to meet her after and she was like ‘thank you for carrying the sound and representing’. I was like, oh wow, this is our main inspiration into music”.

The most nominated act in 2022 is Knucks who has managed to rock up 5, as well as Little Simz and Central Cee who have 4 each. Regardless, the 30^th November promises to be a night celebrating excellence in music and entertainment. It’s not one to be missed!

Check out the full list of nominations and grab your ticket to the MOBO Awards 2022 now!

Grab your copy of the Gigwise print magazine here.

More about: MOBO Awards