The Featured Artists Coalition (FAC) and Music Managers Forum (MMF) have revealed that Little Simz will be crowned Artist Of The Year at the 2021 Artist & Manager Awards.
The ceremony takes place at Bloomsbury Big Top on November 18. Headline sponsors for the event are SoundCloud, while the ceremony will be hosted by Capital FM’s Roman Kemp.
Little Simz, a former Music Week cover star, made a commercial breakthrough with her recent Top 5 album, Sometimes I Might Be Introvert.
The Artist Of The Year Award is sponsored by Amazon Music.
Patrick Clifton, head of music at Amazon Music UK, said: “We’re thrilled to partner with the 2021 Artist & Manager Awards and to support such a prestigious category. Little Simz has had an incredible year with a meteoric fourth album and a summer of back-to-back standout shows. I can’t wait to see what she does in 2022.”
The FAC and MMF have also announced that Grace Ladoja, co-manager of Skepta and Sarz, and co-founder of Metallic Inc, is the winner of our 2021 Entrepreneur Award.
Ladoja received Music Week’s Rising Star Award for Women In Music in 2017. In 2020, she started the Metallic Fund to support young black creatives and entrepreneurs, offering both grants and mentorship to individuals and businesses.
The FAC and MMF have also unveiled shortlists for the Breakthrough Artist and Breakthrough Manager categories, with the winners announced on the night of the Awards.
Breakthrough Artist, sponsored by Spotify
• Ashnikko
• Becky Hill
• Celeste
• Central Cee
• Easy Life
• Griff
• Headie One
• KSI
• Rina Sawayama
• Sault
Breakthrough Manager
• Bello (Central Cee)
• Ben Blackburn, Twenty Ten Management (girl in red, Aquilo, Hugo White)
• Charlie Owen (Joy Crookes)
• Harry Knyt, Milk & Honey UK (iO, Show N Prove, Billented, Jordan Shaw, Maestro & James Newman)
• Ian Tunstall SoEmpire & Rian Zoll-Khan, RNR Management (Wes Nelson, Ayo Beatz)
• Jess Monroe, Monroe Management (Morrison, Bandokay, Stardom)
• Kayleigh Thorpe, Little Runaway Management (Gerry Cinnamon)
• Matt Dodds, Ditto Management (Big Zuu, Nathan Dawe, Niko B)
Chris Stoneman, music strategy lead, Spotify UK, said: “Spotify is the number one destination for new and emerging artists and artist discovery, and new talent is the bedrock of music culture, so we’re delighted to be sponsoring the Breakthrough Artist Award at this year’s event.
“Our global emerging artist programme Radar is testament to this and it’s incredible to see such a diverse and creative line-up of artists nominated for this award. From Radar artists Griff and Central Cee to Becky Hill, who is the face of our Equal initiative to foster equity for women in music. We look forward to celebrating with these artists and their teams on November 18."
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