Mercury Prize

MC Skepta beats Bowie to Mercury prize for best British album

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• published: 18 Sep 2016
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DESPITE the bookies having David Bowie’s last album as the favourite to take the Mercury prize, the late icon, top right, was beaten by an underground artist on Thursday night. Day & Night watched on as grime MC Skepta scooped the 2016 Hyundai Mercury Prize for the year’s Best British Album, ahead of the music legend who was expected to be the first posthumous winner.  The Londoner, 33, whose album Konnichiwa also beat Oxford band Radiohead, walked away with the £25,000 cash prize. He thanked his mum and dad as they stood beside him on stage and added: “RIP David Bowie, RIP Amy Winehouse,” in honour of the late British music icons. Grime, primarliy a UK music genre, is a mixture of rap and garage. One of the judges, Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker, said the final decision came down to “two black stars”, a reference to Skepta, right, and the title of Bowie’s album released days before his death.  He added that the late musician’s influence could be heard in many of the shortlisted artists and that he was probably looking down on them all and hoping Skepta would win. Bowie’s life was still celebrated with a stunning rendition of his song Lazarus by actor Michael C Hall, who is set to take part in the upcoming Bowie musical of the same name. Calvin Harris has sent fans into a flurry with an explosive new track believed to be aimed at ex-girlfriend Taylor Swift.  Calvin released song My Way on Thursday night and the lyrics seem to reference the recent tension between him and the 26-year-old pop star The Scottish DJ, 32, sings: “Lie Away, Two-Faced, but in my heart I understand. I made my move and it was all about you and now I feel so far removed,” before repeatedly stating: “You were the one thing in my way.” Following the pair’s split in June after a 15-month relationship, Calvin slammed the Shake It Off hit-maker on Twitter for revealing after the break-up that she wrote his hit track This Is What You Came For. He asserted that by her doing that after initially insisting on anonymity, her agenda was clearly to discredit him.  “Hurtful to me at this point that her and her team would go so far out of their way to try and make ME look bad…” he tweeted at the time.  Sir Paul McCartney says Beatlemania meant The Beatles couldn’t hear a note of their music when performing. The 75-year-old admits that while his band did everything they could to keep touring, they gave it up in 1966 partly because of screaming fans: “We tried to keep the live thing together but it just finally became too much. “Then it was like, ‘OK, we are going to stop that, Now what can we do? We’ll get into the studio, now we can really spend some time [making studio LPs].’” Asked how the band was able to stay so in tune with thousands of girls screaming, he added to BBC Radio 6 Music: “I think we just had got better… Some early gigs we were really out of tune and there were people throwing coins at us. We would pick them up.” The Fab Four’s live days between 1962 and 1966 are the subject of Ron Howard’s new documentary film, The Beatles: Eight Days A Week – The Touring Years. Gary Barlow is nervous about the West End opening of musical comedy The Girls. The Take That frontman, who co-wrote it with screenwriter Tim Firth, is already getting worried about the response to the show when it hits London in January. Replying to a fan who told him she’d bought tickets for opening night, The Back For Good singer tweeted: “Nervous already!”  He is, however, grateful that folks are lapping up the tickets. He added: “Thank you to everyone who’s booked tickets to see @thegirlsmusical and no booking fees! Hurrah!”  The Girls is based on the play and film Calendar Girls, which itself was based on a true story about a group of women who made a nude calendar for charity. JACK TEAGUE and DOMINIQUE HINES Other videos: 👉 Caroline Flack furiously denies 'drug use' claims as fans speculate on Instagram http://youtu.be/ua6QZ_OvfhY 👉 From tired eyes to blotchy skin - how to read what your FACE is telling you http://youtu.be/EewE5ExC9Ko 👉 Liz Hurley flaunts her natural beauty as she shares snap of herself as fresh-faced teen http://youtu.be/4M9FGMoi-PM 👉 The indestructible and incurable virus: Everything YOU should know about herpes http://youtu.be/1YdxE0m-jt4 👉 Choking warning: Life-saving tips on This Morning after tragic death of baby http://youtu.be/yfv7fxnS5Q8 👉 Diabetes danger: Napping during the day could nearly DOUBLE risk of developing condition http://youtu.be/ceGO8LTfgko 👉 TYPE 2 DIABETES: Oily fish 'increases risk' of developing condition, experts argue http://youtu.be/I9sxjpLtJyg 👉 'Long-distance is easy with him' Chloe Moretz and Brooklyn Beckham are STILL TOGETHER http://youtu.be/_dKHigUpEGM 👉 Charlotte McKinney flaunts her assets in sexy li http://video.5la.net/gb