FAR LEFT Kanya with X-factor judge Tulisa
LEFT Delilah attending the MOBO Awards
I come from a large family. I’m one of nine children, and I’m the youngest girl. In fact, ‘Kanya’ means the youngest one taking place in 1996, it was a landmark in the urban music industry. And pulling it off was an achievement against all odds. Not only did Kanya have to mortgage her property to fund it, but the entire event had to be put together within six weeks. If you know anything about event management – even if your only experience is putting together a children’s birthday party, then you know that it’s no mean feat. The MOBO Awards are associated with the crème de la crème of urban music, but how did Kanya get these big names involved in this start-up project? “They weren’t big at the time; they were unknown, so we were able to give them a platform,” she says.
In addition to all the great music talent at those first awards, where Lionel Richie won the well-deserved Lifetime Achievement Award, Since then the awards have gone from strength to strength. It has helped cement the careers of many young artists, from Rita Ora to Emeli Sandé, and Amy Winehouse, to name a few. The fact the Kanya has had the opportunity to help make these musicians’ dream a reality is something that she is very proud of. “We’ve been fortunate that we’ve seen incredible talent coming through”, Kanya says proudly. “An unknown Amy Winehouse performed for us. She had an incredible voice and just really mesmerised the
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industry. What people don’t realise is all the hard work and graft that artists like this put into trying to be a success in the music industry. When N-Dubz won best newcomer, they said to us they were on the verge of giving up. Their manager had died, they’d been dropped by their label, and then they got this platform and huge amount of support from us, and that changed everything for them.” Starting something like the MOBO Awards takes a very business minded person with an entrepreneurial drive. This is something that Kanya seems to have in abundance. She found a niche in the market