Celebrating the Best of UK and Irish Music: Mercury Prize 2022

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Clare Stevensre Stevens reports reports on on this this year year’s’s awardaward showshow

Photo:Photo: Brucru e C Childs hilds

FREE REE NOW Albums oflbums of the Yearthe Year

Fer erg gus Mus McC Cre rea adie die ‘Fore‘For st Floort Floor’ ’ Joy Coy roo rookeskes ‘Skin’Skin’

Gwewenn nno ‘Tre‘Tresor sor’ ’ Kojey Raey Radi dic calal ‘Reason ason to t S Smile’ile’

Harry Strry Styles yles ‘Harr‘Harry ’s Hy’s Hous ouse’ e’

Jessie Bessie Buc ckleykley & B Ber erna nard Brd Butler ler ‘For All O‘For All Our ur D Days Th That Te t Tear ar the He the Hear art’ t’ Little Sttle Sim imz z ‘Sometimes ‘Sometimes I Might Might be be Introvert’ Introvert’ Novaova TwinTwins s ‘Supe pernova’rnova’ Sam Fem ender der ‘Seve eventee teen Goin oing U g Unde der’

Selfel Esteem eem ‘P ‘Prioritisrioritise P e Pleleasasu ure’re’

Wete L Leg ‘Wet Leg’ ‘Wet Leg’

Ya ard Actrd Act ‘The Ove ‘The Overlo oa ad’ d’

Top: Yard Act Yard Act Middle: iddle: Joy Crookesoy Crookes Bottom:ttom: L Litt ttle Simz, allle Sim all wi with their awards their a ards

Photo:Pho o: Mercury Mer ury Prize 2022ri 2022

Above: bove: Little Simz L ttle Sim Right:ight: Kojey ey RadicalR dica

It may have been my imagination, but the shortlisted artists for the 2022 Mercury Prize who were not chosen as the overall winner seemed to be applauding particularly warmly as the TV cameras swept round the auditorium of the Eventim Hammersmith Apollo, capturing reactions to the announcement that rapper, singer and actor Little Simz had scooped the top prize for her album Sometimes I Might be Introvert. The lyrics of the track she had performed live at the ceremony, entitled ‘How the hell did I get here?’, must have resonated with many of her fellow performers.

‘I’m the version of me I always imagined when I was younger,’ she rapped, ‘I improvised my way here, no rules … handin’ mixtapes out in my school, all I had was my brain and my hunger, had to use that as tools. ’ The song goes on to recall shooting videos in a friend’s garden with no budget, being rebuffed and told she would never get anywhere, or that she would have to work twice as hard as anyone else because she was black, but sticking with it, having faith in her goals, studying other people’s albums, learning ‘about flow and cadence’ until suddenly, in the words of a memorable line, ‘Many dreams I’m sitting on I’m made up of the same stars that I wish upon …’

No doubt many of the other musicians in the room could relate to the ‘studio runs on foot, trekking through the rain’ that she described, and were also wondering ‘How did you believe you would get here?’

The celebration took place on 18 October, postponed from 8 September, the day of HM The Queen’s death. Remarkably, only Harry Styles, in the middle of a major US tour, was unable to make the new date and had to acknowledge his award, for his chart-topping third studio album Harry’s House, on a pre-recorded video.

The Mercury Prize promotes the best of UK and Irish music and the artists who produce it. It has no categories, and all genres of music are represented in the shortlist of 12 Albums of the Year, selected by an independent panel of judges who then meet on the day of the ceremony to choose the overall winner of the £25,000 cash prize and Album of the Year trophy. This year saw the Mobility Super App FREE NOW take over as the headline sponsor, as part of a commitment to supporting British music. The shortlisted albums were made available as a playlist on Amazon Music and the awards ceremony was broadcast on BBC Four and BBC Radio 6.

Guest presenter Jamz Supernova announced the winner on behalf of the judging panel. ‘In a year that has, to put it mildly, presented rather a lot of challenges, British and Irish music has thrived more than ever, ’ she said. ‘When it came down to it, the judges were so impressed by Sometimes I Might Be Introvert by Little Simz that everyone could get behind it. This accomplished and complex, yet entirely accessible album is the work of someone striving constantly to push herself. It deals with themes both personal and political while putting them against music that is as sophisticated as it is varied. The Mercury Prize is all about shining a light on albums of lasting value and real artistry. Sometimes I Might Be Introvert has both.’

Little Simz – Simbiatu Abisola Abiola Ajikawo – is 28 and comes from a British Nigerian family and grew up on a council estate in Islington, North London. She studied at Highbury Fields School and began her career as a child actor before focusing on music at the University of West London.

Sometimes I Might be Introvert is her fourth album, and the second to be nominated for the Mercury Prize. Produced by her long-time collaborator Inflo, it received a Brit Award nomination and was named by BBC Radio 6 Music as the best album of 2021. Many of the 19 tracks, which can be loosely described as orchestral hip-hop, were written in lockdown, hence their reflective nature and the theme of excavating elements from her past that Simz would prefer to bury, such as her difficult relationship with her absent father, the death of a cousin, or the conflict between her naturally quiet personality and her desire to be a performer.

Simz cannot be alone in experiencing that contradiction. Similar themes to do with dealing with past trauma, the difficulty of negotiating modern life or how it feels to be suddenly famous certainly keep cropping up in the Mercury-shortlisted albums.

Rebecca Lucy Taylor, who performs Self Esteem, writes about social awkwardness, guilt and memory on her album Prioritise Pleasure, using an upbeat idiom that she is happy to define as ‘art-pop’ to speak up for women who, like her, may have been told to ’stop showing off, you ’re a good girl, you ’re a good sturdy girl’ . Hip-hop artist Kojey Radical took ten years to develop his debut studio album Reason to Smile, which explores both his Black British identity and his complex relationship with his father.

The shortlisted acts are hugely varied in style but two questions seem to run through their current work, questions perhaps that many other performers are currently asking themselves: Who are we, and why are we here?