Brits 2017
- Tafadzwa Muchenje
- Feb 24, 2017
- 3 min read
The Brits were so good. The afterparty was fire. I am here to talk about the music not about how drunk I got and the endless fun experienced that night.
Congratulations to all the winners.
For some of awards, I have few issues with who got what! I feel that although this year there was a rise in the diversity nominations such as; Skepta, Micheal Kiwanuka, Kano, Emeli Sandé, and other notable artists. This comes after last years awards when the last event was hash-tagged with the title #BritSoWhite. Out of 48 nominations for British artists, only four musicians were from ethnic 'minorities'. There was serious outrage as some Grime artist really felt hurt that they weren't nominated as did other artist of other ethnic background.
You can see that they've made a massive change to show they're aware of artists of colour, and artist from the urban scene. I feel however that nothing has changed within the system, yes we can see a change on the surface with a more diverse nominee list, but the awards showed that nothing had actually changed.
Just to mention a few of the categories: Best Male Solo Artist, Craig David has hands down had the most incredible year last year. With his reemergence into the music scene and really putting himself up there with the bests again, this time with a new style. His album, Following My Intuition is just amazing, with bangers 16 the Justin Bieber mix that went viral in minutes. I remember finding it and showing it to all my friends, and a year later I was seeing him headlining at Bestival. Other mentions, Ain't Giving Up, When the Baseline Drops his single with Big Narsite. Craig in my eyes should have won that award. Alternatively Michael Kiwanuka had a strong year, with his album release and was another strong contender for the gong.
I don't want to take anything away from the winners of these awards I am only using this as a point to my argue my case that there really wasn't any change in the way the Brits view artists of a difference. With British Album Of The Year for example, I felt that again artist of real worthy were being overlooked. Kano, Skepta, or Michael Kiwanuka were stronger contenders for this award. Most notably Stormzy and Skepta who were both overlooked the year before. Both have had fruitful years in the last 3 years, what both have done for the British music scene is phenomenal, they've really paved the way for the underground MC's/rappers and R&B artist in the UK the fever has already begun to spread.
Ray Blk is one of these newcomers who is now getting her own limelight with the gates being opened by the Skeppy and Stromz. Again, I congratulate the winners of the awards, but for me there still is a lot more change to come until all artists are viewed equally.
The live performances from 1975, Coldplay, Bruno Mars, Skepta and Ed Sheeran x Stromzy were all of high calibre. The evening as said before was very good! There was a tribute to George Michael and Prince but it was mainly focused on George Michael, it was so heartbreaking. Chris Martin, from Coldplay was given the honour of singing a rendition of the song A Different Corner. There was a backdrop and images of George Michael over the years. Before this his band mates from Wham! spoke highly of him, and their memories of him.
We really have lost a lot of amazing artists, but the future is bright. They will undoubtably live on through their music and their fans.
Just want to thank my good friend for sorting us out with tickets, thank you so much again for that experience.
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