Entrepreneur Kanya King, who based the Music of Black Origin (MOBO) Awards to champion Black musicians within the UK, has died on the age of 57.
In an announcement, MOBO Awards mentioned she “handed away peacefully on 3 June 2026 after a brave and characteristically decided battle with colon most cancers”.
Kanya King remortgaged her residence 30 years in the past to launch the initiative. Artists together with Stormzy, Little Simz, RAYE, Craig David, Ms. Dynamite, Amy Winehouse and Central Cee have been celebrated by her awards.
In an interview with the Night Customary in 2017, King mentioned when she acquired pregnant aged 16 and dropped out of faculty she “felt sort of written off — that I wasn’t going to quantity to a lot.” She associated how a careers adviser instructed her she would possibly get a job as a supervisor at Sainsbury’s if she was fortunate. “That put a fireplace in my stomach and gave me the motivation to say ‘Why ought to I not have ambition, little is anticipated of me?’,” she mentioned.
“What Kanya created was by no means merely an awards ceremony. It was an act of cultural justice,” the assertion saying her demise continued.
“MOBO didn’t simply have fun Black music; it legitimised it, amplified it and remodeled the cultural panorama of the UK.
“She constructed a platform that reached a whole bunch of thousands and thousands of individuals around the globe. She was awarded a CBE and acquired an Ivors Academy Honour in 2025. She by no means stopped. She by no means requested for permission. She by no means accepted that the phrase “no” was remaining.
“When she stood on the MOBO stage in Newcastle in February 2025, simply months after her prognosis, she instructed the viewers: “I by no means allowed somebody to outline my limits. Not in life. Not in enterprise. And I’m actually not going to have that occur now.”
Amongst these paying tribute had been Stormzy who posted dove and coronary heart emojis on Instagram.
Mis-Teeq singer Alesha Dixon mentioned King was an “unimaginable girl” who “helped so many individuals”, London Mayor Sadiq Khan mentioned she was “a real pioneer” who “modified the face of tradition and music”, and tradition Secretary Lisa Nandy mentioned she was “an actual pioneer who modified British music for the higher.”
