07 February 2024 , 21:33
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Loose Women star Charlene White praised the 'beautiful celebration' of the MOBO Awards.
The broadcaster and ITV panellist, 43, is one of the many influential guests at this year's ceremony taking place in Sheffield. The MOBO Awards has been celebrating music of Black origin and culture for over a quarter of a century now and this year it returned with its 26th ceremony.
Taking part in Sheffield for the first time at the Utilita Arena tonight, the show is hosted by Love Island's Indiyah Polack, comedian Babatúndé Aléshé and YouTube star Zeze Millz. Ahead of the show, Charlene talked to Mirror Online about the 'scale and impact' the MOBO Awards had.
Charlene, who also presented the Paving the Way Award, told the Mirror: "It’s such a beautiful celebration of Black British music. Being here and the scale in which it is now, it shows how important Black British music is. It shows its scale, it shows its impact and it shows its range and its reach."
Charlene presented an award at the MOBOs (Getty Images For MOBO)
She talked about the impact and scale of the ceremony (Dave Benett/Getty Images)Those topping the nominations this year included female rapper Little Simz who took the joint lead with four nods alongside fellow rapper Stormzy. Hot on the heels of her record-breaking seven Brit Award nominations, singer-songwriter RAYE, who has seen phenomenal success over the last year, has also bagged three MOBO nominations.
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Tonight's incredible performances had the Sugababes grace the stage, along with Cristale, So Solid Crew's Kaish, Harvey, Romeo and many more. The first award of the evening was announced, with Potter Payper’s ‘Real Back In Style’ beating off some stiff competition to be named Album of the Year.
Bugzy Malone won the Best Grime Act award and delivered quite the acceptance speech on stage. The Manchester-born rapper and actor paid tribute to his northern roots - telling the crowd when he started in the industry, not many from the north were making money and winning big honours in the business.
“But look at us now,” Bugzy declared, as he went on to spray champagne! The celebration left an impact, with the hosts for the next award noting the stage was still damp as they arrived to announce Sault as the winner of the Best R&B/Soul Act. Little Simz collected the award on behalf of Sault, to keep their identity private
MOBO was founded by Kanya King and the first-ever awards ceremony was presented by Baby D, in the Best Dance Act category. The event honours achievements in hip-hop, grime, UK Drill, R&B, soul, reggae, jazz, gospel and African music. Across its 22-year history, the MOBOs were broadcast on Channel 4, BBC Television, ITV2 and Channel 5 before returning to the BBC in 2020.