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The BRIT Awards 2018 with Mastercard Critics’ Choice Award shortlist announced

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Wednesday 29th November The BRIT Awards 2018 with Mastercard are delighted to announce the shortlist for the 2018 CriticsChoice award as Jorja Smith, Mabel and Stefflon Don, in a year that also marks an incredible ten years of the Critics’ Choice prize.

Since its inception in 2008, the BRITs Critics’ Choice award has successfully predicted and identified the future stars of British recording talent.  Previous winners including Adele, Emeli Sandé, Sam Smith, and last year’s winner Rag ‘N’ Bone Man, have gone on to achieve phenomenal chart success both in the UK and globally. Collectively, the BRITs Critics’ Choice winners have sold over 40 million albums worldwide.

Jorja Smith

It’s an honour to be recognised amongst such incredible emerging talent. 2017 was a very special year and there’s so much more to come from me in 2018!

Mabel

Being nominated for the Critics Choice award really is a dream come true for me.  So much hard work has gone into getting to this point, so to be acknowledged by something like the BRIT Awards means the world.

Stefflon Don

I am so excited to be nominated for this amazing award. A big shout out to all my fans and dons for their support. 2017 has been lit and I can’t wait for 2018! Mad love to you all”

The Critics’ Choice Award is chosen by a team of experts including the music editors of national newspapers, key music and lifestyle magazines and music websites plus the heads of music at major radio and music TV stations. The Award is open to all artists who in the media and the selected Critics’ opinion will reach a significant level of success in their career the following year. Over 100 artists from a range of genres were considered for the award.

The 2018 Critics’ Choice Award winner will be announced on Monday 4th December and will be the first recipient of the specially designed Anish Kapoor award.

Listen to the Critics’ Choice shortlist on Apple Music here: BRIT Awards 2018 on Apple Music

The Critics’ Choice Award is celebrating its 10th anniversary year.  Past Critics’ Choice winners:

2008                       Adele

2009                       Florence + The Machine

2010                       Ellie Goulding

2011                       Jessie J

2012                       Emeli Sandé

2013                       Tom Odell

2014                       Sam Smith

2015                       James Bay

2016                       Jack Garratt

2017                       Rag ’n’ Bone Man

Mastercard is celebrating 19 years as sponsor of The BRIT Awards and continues its sponsorship to its 20th Anniversary with the much sought-after Mastercard Album of the Year Award.

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2018 will celebrate the Awards 38th show, its eighth at The O2 Arena in London and its 26th year broadcasting exclusively on ITV. The BRIT Awards have established themselves as a global music institution that annually celebrates UK chart and commercial successes. This year (2017) The BRITs celebrated an incredible night in British music with the late David Bowie honoured with two awards and incredible performances from Little Mix and Katy Perry. The BRIT Awards annually raises funds for The BRIT Trust charity, whose main beneficiaries are the BRIT School for Performing Arts & Technology, Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy and other selected charities. To date, over £20 million has been raised for The BRIT Trust charity.

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For further information on The BRITs, please contact:

Press/Online – DawBell

Stuart Bell/Richard Dawes/Lisa Birch/Holly Appleton – 020 3327 7111

[email protected] / 07931 501 495

[email protected] / 07931 501 924

[email protected] / 07415 863761

[email protected] / 07891 997704

 

NOTES TO EDITORS

Jorja Smith

Jorja Smith has created a name for herself as a gifted young R&B songwriter with a masterful knack for crafting melodies that make you feel like you could be anywhere from a smoky Parisian jazz club to a North London warehouse party. Her debut EP, Project 11, was a flowing collection of songs knitted together by the soulful elasticity of her voice.Jorja’s collaborated with the Toronto megastar on “Get It Together”, and featured on his More Life project, as well performing as a special guest at his UK headline shows. Jorja grew up in the industrial West Midlands town of Walsall and encouraged by her parents, she started playing keyboard at the age of 8, and was learning to sing classical in secondary school. In 2017 she completed a US headline tour and joined Bruno Mars on his shows across the pond. Featuring songs mostly written between the ages of 16-18, it’s a youthful exploration of love and anger, but also an album about self-discovery. She won’t be putting it out until 2018, though.

Mabel

Born into a musical dynasty, Mabel spent her childhood zig-zagging with her sisters from the mountains of Malaga to Sweden, where she studied at the prestigious Rytmus Musikergymnasiet music school (before starting to write songs in London). A true child of the golden age of 00s R&B, Mabel has since blossomed into one of British pop’s refreshing and positive young role models: moving effortlessly between the worlds of music, fashion, dance and art, with her songs variously exploring female independence, sexuality, growing up and into your own skin. It’s a style Mabel continues to evolve her own way, and at her own pace: recent single ‘Finders Keepers’ has since emerged as one of the breakout hits of the year, having spent five weeks in the UK Top 10 (the third longest stint for a new British artist this year). Mabel is “blazing a trail that’s all her own” (Guardian), and 2018 looks set to confirm her status as a bonafide star who’s just getting started.

Stefflon Don

Stefflon Don is a charismatic, multilingual, multitalented rapper, singer and songwriter. Speaking English, Dutch and splattering her speech with her parent’s Jamaican patois, Steff has the effortless ability to inhabit many worlds, offering a genuine, authentic global perspective through her music. Whether rap, grime, pop, bashment or bubbling, Steff sounds utterly at home. It’s perhaps why such an impressive array of artists from Charli XCX to Lil Yachty and Wretch 32 have wanted to work with the 25-year-old. One of seven siblings born in Birmingham to Jamaican parents, Steff’s family moved to Holland when she was five-years-old, where was raised in Rotterdam and enjoyed a particularly uninhibited childhood surrounded by Europeans, Turkish and Caribbean people. She had her first studio session at the age of nine and spent her teen years singing and rapping with her brothers and sisters. Steff returned to the UK when she was 14 and made an impression in 2015 with her powerful, patois-inflected version of Wretch 32’s Six Words and her take on the Section Boy’s street smash Lock Arff.

About The BRIT Awards – British Record Industry Trust

The BRIT (British Record Industry Trust) Awards are organised by the BPI – the record labels’ association that promotes British music. The BPI’s membership is made up of over 400 independent labels as well as the UK’s three major record companies – collectively they account for around 85 percent of the music consumed in the UK and around one in eight of all the artist albums sold around the world.

The BRIT Awards 2018 with Mastercard will be the 38th BRIT Awards, which has raised more than £20m for The BRIT Trust charity, whose main beneficiaries are the BRIT School for Performing Arts & Technology www.brit.croydon.sch.uk Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy www.nordoff-robbins.org.uk and other selected charities which match the mission criteria.

Over 8,000 young people have been given free education and the opportunity to enter the BRIT School since its opening in 1991 and more than 10,000 children and adults have been helped by the extraordinary music therapy work carried out by Nordoff-Robbins.

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