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Artist News Awards
Jorja Smith, Mabel and Stefflon Don make BRITs Critics’ Choice shortlist
By Andy Malt | Published on Wednesday 29 November 2017
The shortlist for the 2018 BRITs Critics Choice award has been announced. On it are Jorja Smith, Mabel and Stefflon Don. So for the first time ever, someone good is guaranteed to win it. This, of course, is the new talent focused BRITs gong, the winner of which is confirmed well before the awards show itself, hence the early shortlist.
“It’s an honour to be recognised amongst such incredible emerging talent”, says Smith. “2017 was a very special year and there’s so much more to come from me in 2018!”
Mabel adds: “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”.
Meanwhile, Stefflon Don comments: “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”.
Of course, with this announcement a load of people are going to go and look up all these artists’ music to check them out. In the case of Stefflon Don, they’re going to find her recent collaboration with Skepta, which heavily samples fucking terrible novelty song ‘My Ding-A-Ling’. Maybe someone should have thought about that before that was allowed out into the world.
Both Stefflon Don and Jorja Smith actually featured in the longlist of the BBC’s Sound Of 2017 poll when it was published a year ago – with Smith ultimately coming fourth in that list of new acts to watch this year.
Does this mean the BBC’s pundits are now getting a bit ahead of themselves? I don’t know, the winner of the 2017 BRITs Critics’ Choice prize was Rag N Bone Man, who also came second in the 2017 Sound Of poll. Maybe we should all stop thinking about these things so much.
The winner of this year’s Critics’ Choice award will be announced on 4 Dec. The main BRITs ceremony will then take place at the O2 Arena on 21 Feb.
