{"id":484411,"date":"2026-06-05T11:09:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-05T11:09:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/484411\/"},"modified":"2026-06-05T11:09:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T11:09:09","slug":"kanya-king-mobo-awards-founder-dies-at-57","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/484411\/","title":{"rendered":"Kanya King: Mobo Awards founder dies at 57"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Launched in 1996, the Mobos became globally renowned for their recognition of black talent &#8211; platforming upcoming stars and pushing to break industry boundaries.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">King defied expectations as a teenage mother who dropped out of school to gatecrash the predominantly white male music industry.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">She studied English literature at London&#8217;s Goldsmiths College and later, while working as a TV researcher, spotted a gap in the market for a black-focused awards show.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">But success did not come easily.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I remember being told, &#8216;You&#8217;ve got a chip on your shoulder, why are you talking about race all the time?'&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.musicweek.com\/interviews\/read\/kanya-king-the-music-week-interview\/084129\" class=\"ssrcss-1e0jzsh-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">she told Music Week in 2021, external<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">By 1999, King had been awarded an MBE for services to music as the Mobos grew from scrappy underdog to music industry fixture, holding its own against the long-established Brit Awards.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Its musical spectrum remains uniquely broad &#8211; giving early support to UK garage at the turn of the millennium, alongside R&amp;B, soul, reggae, jazz, Afrobeat and broader African music, and championing grime before its mainstream explosion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Launched in 1996, the Mobos became globally renowned for their recognition of black talent &#8211; platforming upcoming stars&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":484412,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[93,61,60,278],"class_list":["post-484411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=484411"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484411\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/484412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=484411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=484411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=484411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}