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An awesome and ridiculous film that leaves you thrilled beyond the point of your natural endurance
2012
Theatre
The show has suddenly become quite wonderful, and the galvanising factor is the terrific stage debut of Melanie C
Blood Brothers
Music
The British pop music industry may be eating itself but if Muse are the pick of what it can offer the world in 2010 then British music is in rude health indeed
Muse
I was smitten by both Gilberts enormous luxuriant moustache and the intelligence and nuance of this highly entertaining play
I totally recommend Babbo to anyone who is looking for really good and traditional Italian food
Always been a fan but never seen them live. I was ecstatic to be part of this epic event. WOW!
London,
Britain’s got talent: doing it their own way are Beverley Knight
Crazy: Dizzee Rascal
Rap star: Chipmunk
After his much-mocked stage invasion at the MTV VMA awards a fortnight ago, it’s almost a relief to learn that three-times nominated Kanye West will not be attending the Mobos in Scotland on Wednesday.
Nor will any of the other major American nominees for a Music of Black Origin Award, including Beyoncé, Eminem, Jay-Z and Lady Gaga. In other years, this would be the story: poor Blighty’s inferior urban music scene snubbed yet again by the real stars. This year, for possibly the first time, we don’t need them.
While most British grime, rap and R&B artists remain of negligible interest internationally, their hit rate at home has been remarkable in the past 12 months. There has been one number apiece for X Factor spawn JLS and Alexandra Burke, two for Tinchy Stryder and three for Dizzee Rascal, who has transformed himself from edgy teenage Mercury-winner to radio-friendly pop supremo.
Other homegrown Mobo hopefuls with Top 10 hits between them include Tottenham rapper Chipmunk (four nominations), DJ Ironik, Alesha Dixon and Mr Hudson. R&B singer-songwriter Taio Cruz, another Londoner nominated last year, is number one this week with the skittering electropop of Break Your Heart, while N-Dubz, a modern-day East 17 who seem to be central to the new urban mainstream, are surely due a chart topper of their own before much longer.
Just as, in recent years, indie rock smoothed off its edges and essentially became pop music, so British rappers are moving on from their minor underground fanbases and working hard to land on daytime radio playlists. Chipmunk’s joint hit with Ironik, Tiny Dancer, unashamedly lifted large portions of the Elton John ballad, speeded it up and gave it bounce. Stryder’s number one, Never Leave You, features surviving Sugababe Amelle Berrabah on an anthemic chorus, while Dizzee now raps about sunshine and discos over breezy synths. This is the sound of the moment.
Nor is it overly reliant on aping the urban music of the States, which has long since overtaken country as the most popular style in the charts. You can’t get much more London than Chipmunk, aka teenager Jahmaal Fyffe, who raps about such un-American subjects as drinking tea and his GCSE results.
That doesn’t mean we can’t play them at their own game. West London singers Estelle and Jay Sean have recently featured big-name US rappers Kanye West and Lil Wayne on their songs and earned hits over there. Sean’s single with Lil Wayne, Down, has been at number two on the Billboard chart for the past three weeks, making him the most successful male British urban artist in US chart history.
Both Estelle and Sean have complained about lack of support from their British record companies and it is still the case that a UK urban act sustaining a long career, such as Beverley Knight, is a real rarity. But with the simultaneous success of so many similar artists, it feels like a tipping point is being reached. By next year they won’t need their own specialist awards ceremony in the Mobos — they’ll have taken over at the Brits.
The Mobo Awards (www.mobo.com) are on 30 September at Glasgow SECC and will be broadcast live on BBC Three. Tinchy Stryder and Chipmunk are at Shepherd’s Bush Empire, W12 (0844 477 2000; www.o2shepherdsbushempire.co.uk) tonight. The Brrrap Pack Tour, featuring Chipmunk, Ironik and more, reaches Koko, NW1 (0870 432 5527; www.koko.uk.com) tomorrow night.
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
Rick Styles is quite correct, most modern music is indeed of black origin. In which case why don't any white artists playing rock (definitely of black origin) win a MOBO? Or does MOBO in fact not refer to music whose style is of black origin, but instead to music written and/or performed only by black artists.
As for Mr Styles's comment: "The 'Brits' are awards that black artists never win." Maybe we should expand that line of thought and introduce an Alternative Olympic Games for those athletes who failed to qualify for the real thing. Or at the very least a SPOWO - Sprinters Of White Origin - event to give a medal chance to non-black sprinters who can't get close to the majority world's best, who are of black origin.
- Paul H, London, UK
The 'Brits' are awards that black artists never win.
If the MOBOs are "racist" then surely the Brit Awards are racist too, although discretely so.
Most modern music is of black origin; even heavy rock is of black origin. (Thank you Jimi Hendrix)
I agree that the name MOBO should be changed but let's try and give black artists recognition at the Brits and then we won't need the MOBOs.
- Rick Styles, London
The MOBO Awards: for Music Of Black Origin. You can just imagine the furore if someone oganised a Music Of White Origin Awards. You'd have every anti-racist in the country calling for them to be banned, and to have every race-discrimination law in the book thrown at whoever was behind it.
I'm not against the MOBOs in any way, but I do resent the dualism that it highlights.
So let's open it up. The MOBO Awards are racist: discuss.
- Paul H, London, UK
