MOBO Awards founder Kanya King has been made a CBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List.
King – who was already an MBE and won the Media Pioneer award at the Music Week Women In Music Awards 2016 – was given the gong for services to music and culture, after turning the MOBO Awards into a hugely influential platform for urban music.
Another key figure in UK urban music, Ms Dynamite, was also honoured, receiving an MBE under her real name of Niomi McLean-Daley. The rapper won the Mercury Prize in 2002 for her debut album, A Little Deeper, which has sold 497,285 copies, according to the Official Charts Company.
Other musicians and execs honoured in the list include opera singer Dame Kiri Te Kanawa; baritone singer Simon Keenlyside; composer, pianist and conductor Thomas Ades; the Southbank Centre’s director of music, Gillian Moore; jazz musician Julian Joseph; CEO of music charity Sound & Music, Susanna Eastburn; and composer Debbie Wiseman.
To read King’s recent Aftershow interview with Music Week, reflecting on what she’s learned during her career, click here.
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