Celebrating homegrown talent is what we’re all about, so last Friday we made the epic journey to (a little-known place called) Portsmouth for the hotly anticipated (and first ever) Official Mixtape Awards. The event, tipped as a celebration of music at the grassroots level, promised to provide a chance for newcomers and independent artists to earn recognition for their work, with organisers commenting that we believe our awards show will change the face of UK music, give artists continued hope of a breakthrough and inspire more young people to do something creative. All undeniably good stuff, but did it live up to its name?

Events of this kind are all too often poorly organised excuses for promoters to rip off poor, unsuspecting music fans with a PA line-up of no-shows, so (to be totally honest) we arrived expecting the worst. Kicking off with a bang, hosts Ras Kwame and (a gorgeous purple and gold clad) Kele Le Roc worked the (initially reserved) crowd well, even treating the audience to an impromptu acapella performance from the one and only Ms Roc herself. Further performances from the likes of Wiley, Bashy, Sway, Shystie, Ghetts, Devlin, Ny (with a cameo from Gremlin), Wretch 32, Scorcher, Lady Leshurr, Natalie May and Marvell (yep, they all showed up) had the well-travelled audience in skank mode.

With eight main awards and a Special Contribution award, winning artists included DJ Limelight for Best Mixtape DJ, P Money for Best Grime Mixtape,Wretch 32 for Best Hip Hop Mixtape, Marvell for Best Newcomer, Scorcher for Best Mixtape Producer, P Money for Best Overall Mixtape of 2009, Wileyfor Special Contribution Award and Sway for Mixtape of the Decade.

Having managed to grab and interrogate several of the award-winning artists as they left the stage, the sentiment was clearly one of full support for the awards, with an awareness of how important the event was for up and coming artists. In particular, artists including Wiley, Scorcher and Wretch said they wished the awards had been running when they were in the early stages of establishing themselves in the industry.

Overall, the Official Mixtape Awards had the makings of a great event and hopefully one that the organisers will continue to build on in coming years. With mass support from established and up and coming artists across the board, we’re already looking forward to next years event!

Words by Reya El-Salahi

Tags: Grime, Hip Hop, Marvell, OMA, Reviews, Scorcher, Sway, Wiley, Wretch 32