Preview: The Mobo awards

THE Mobos are determined by public vote, making them the true choice of the people

NOW that Brangelina and Halle have shipped out, where next does Glasgow turn for its glamour fix? To the red carpet outside the SECC this Wednesday and don’t spare the bling, as the Mobo Awards return to the Clydeside for a second time, waving a guest list groaning with pop’s current power players (or should that be playas?). And Dappy from N-Dubz.

The Mobos, a snappy acronym for the unwieldy umbrella term Music of Black Origin, were founded by Kanya King in 1996 to celebrate “urban” music at home and abroad. Since then, the proliferation of successful British rap acts coupled with the international standing of nu-soul divas such as Adele and Amy Winehouse have expanded what was once a niche market in the UK, and the Mobos have grown alongside this urban sprawl.

The awards ceremony moved out of London for the first time in 2009, bringing its biggest show to date to Glasgow, along with a television audience of some five million viewers. Next stop was Liverpool and now it’s back to the dear green ’hood, which it has been agreed will host the show every second year until 2015.

This marks another feather in the cap for the Unesco City of Music. Despite its officially recognised status as a fertile music centre, Glasgow is not widely known for its Mobo, making it an odd choice of host. The awards website bigs up the city as a desirable destination – but ends up citing its many successful guitar bands who will never win a Mobo Award (not unless Belle & Sebastian are planning a radical reinvention).

Unless you count upcoming soul singer (and Mobo nominee) Emeli Sandé’s stint studying neurology at Glasgow University, the homegrown urban scene is more of an underground affair, sustained by grassroots clubs, DJs and collectives who have not yet and, more likely, never will make the crossover jump that several London-based rappers have accomplished in the past couple of years.

But what the city does have is a voracious audience for hip-hop and R&B, as much as anywhere else in the country. With the charts awash with young MCs and aspiring pop soul divas, these are good times to be making Mobo. Although the organisation recognises the breadth of that label with its Best Jazz, Reggae and African Act categories, the temptation is just to boil things down to the more mainstream categories which dominate the coverage of the awards and, it appears, the selection of performers on the night.

On Wednesday, hosts Jason Derulo and Alesha Dixon will introduce a bunch of performances which provide a Top Of The Pops-like snapshot of current popular tastes – all on the R&B/hip-pop spectrum. Representing the stateside contingent, veteran balladeers Boyz II Men celebrate 20 years of ornamental crooning and emoting fit to burst. But the line-up is more a reflection of the chart dominance of homegrown acts from pocket-sized rapper Tinchy Stryder to grime’s heir apparent Wretch 32 to Tesco divas Jessie J and Katy B and their trailblazing forerunner Ms Dynamite, getting back on her horse after a career break. All in all, a good haul for pop-pickers, if not an outstanding contribution to music.

The ceremony’s one paragon of posterity will be there only in spirit, as organisers have planned a tribute to the late Amy Winehouse, whose god-daughter Dionne Bromfield is nominated in the Best R&B/Soul Act category and will presumably have a role to play.

The list of nominees, meanwhile, reads like an even richer who’s who of the pop charts. Jessie J, Tinie Tempah and Wretch 32 lead the field with the most nominations but elsewhere there are significant nods to those acts who can properly be said to have put their mark on this year – Adele, Bruno Mars – and to the superstars Beyoncé and Rihanna who continue to flaunt their, ahem, talents. Expect to see all these names in the running when the Brit Award nominations are announced at the start of next year.

While the Brits is still the ultimate barometer, as awards ceremonies go, of contemporary music tastes across the pop spectrum, it is still essentially an industry backslap. The Mercury Prize is a tastemakers’ selection. The Mobos, however, are determined by public vote, making them the true choice of the people (who like urban music, and who cast their vote).

Popular music is a fickle and cyclical beast, and Mobo will not always be in such rude commercial health. But while it is, though, these awards can bask in the populist spotlight and Glasgow can benefit from their bling. v

FIONA SHEPHERD

The 2011 Mobo Awards are at the SECC, Glasgow, on Wednesday www.Mobo.com