Kanya King wowed a record-breaking crowd at the Music Week Awards 2021, as the MOBOs founder won the prestigious Strat Award.

King took the floor at the climax of an epic evening that saw Polydor, Universal Music Publishing Group and Tap Management star among a glittering list of winners.

After an emotional introduction from Craig David, King delivered a speech that will live long in the memory. Read it in full here...

Thank you to each and every one of you who took time out of your busy schedules to appear in the video, I thank you and Music Week wholeheartedly.

When I was told that I would be receiving this Award, I was stunned and speechless, which doesn’t happen very often.

It was only this morning when I woke up that I thought to myself that at pivotal moments in my life, I have always written letters so I decided this is what I need to do, so I am going to read a letter to my younger self.

“Dear Kanya,

I am writing this letter to say that you have no idea how hard you are going to be working, how much you will need to sacrifice or how much resilience you will need to develop to cope with the journey ahead but it will all be worth it in shaping you as a person. You will get more than you expected and you will be better than you think you could ever be! You are on the most incredible journey!

I am sure a lot of people will remember their first week at primary school. You vividly do as this was your first time you were consciously aware of being different. You were excited when the teacher told the class that you were going to have a play at the end of the year and she wanted everyone to participate. The class was going to perform ‘Snow White’ so when the teacher asked who would like to play ‘Snow White’, despite your incredible shyness, your hand shot up straightaway, as you absolutely loved drama even at a young age.  When everyone slowly turned their eyes on you, it dawned upon you that you weren’t actually white and also all the books you had seen at that point all had heroines who were white, so you slowly lowered your hand and felt thoroughly embarrassed and ashamed.  

This was your earliest memory of feeling different from those around you. You were consequently often teased and asked what it was like to have one black parent and one white parent. You didn’t quite know how to answer that as you didn’t know any different, so you’d say what’s it like not to have that?  All you knew was that, to be seen as being popular in your class, you had to be white and have straight hair. At that time you weren’t to understand how the lack of role models and representation bothered you and would play such a significant part in what you would go on to do.

As you grow up, you will find that it is becoming increasingly more important to create more space to think in a way that will allow you to build on ideas whilst ensuring your life will be balanced. As it turns out, you were wise when growing up to spend so much time in your local park  trying yet again to get away from the daily conflicts at home, the relentless health issues in your family, the cramped council flat with all the stresses and strains constantly trying to earn money to ensure the rent was paid and you would not get kicked out. You will never forget this time in your life and how often you would long to see your mother walking at a hurried pace across the dewy grass rushing towards you. 

Your beautiful mum came from Ireland and your father from Ghana. They both got here at the age of 18 to pursue their dreams at a time when there were notices on houses stating ‘No Blacks, no Irish, no dogs’. It was really a very bleak period, with not only discrimination being rife, but also the move to a new country away from family and friends. Your mother, when marrying a black man, was ostracised from her family. She had no support network and as you had no grand parents, cousins or aunts as a result so this further turned it all into a very isolated existence. This incredible woman had a huge impact on your life. She worked as a cleaner, home help and a nurse and despite her large family, also took in your brother’s homeless friends.

You did spend a lot of time in the park dreaming, imagining things about yourself and others, reflecting on the past whilst thinking about the future. That wide open space was a huge contrast to your life at home which was noisy, cramped and full of anticipation. It was probably out there that you began to realise that you could change your circumstances and this is where your determination started growing. You had dreams and ideals that inspired you, but you understood that you needed discipline,  focus and perserverance to turn them into reality.

I would advise you though to learn to trust yourself more and not allow fear of failure hold you back. Be bold, be brave, have confidence in yourself and invest time in being the best you can be as your father was always saying.

Talking about your father, I wish you had not thrown two important letters away. The first letter was when you wrote to him after going into a care home, when your mother had a nervous break-down and left home followed by the rest of your siblings. Your father kept you off school for a few days. He was worried that your older sister would come and find you and yes, she did. She asked you to choose between staying at home on your own with your father or being with the rest of the family and finding your mother. You chose to go with them but suffered enormous guilt so you wrote a long letter to your father apologising for causing him grief. It ended up in the bin when we found it after your father’s death - your little brother teased you about it so you left it there. Why were you not decisive enough to have held onto it?

Then when your teacher asked and begged to be allowed to publish the second letter you wrote about the death of your father at 13,why did you not agree to do it? Why were you so embarrassed? She said she would publish it anonymously. Yet you still refused. It was such an important chapter in your life witnessing your father’s suffering and being the last one to see him alive. Your father was such an elegant, dignified man with immaculate manners and he had high standards, always telling you to wash your hands and cover your mouths when you coughed - none of your friends had to do this so you resented it. How poignant in this day and age!! Yet with his strong African accent, he had difficulty finding a job.

I have always believed in the power of music to change lives

Your circumstances are what will shape you and give you the big motivation to do what you do. Your father’s strong words to be the best you can be and his actions, your mother tirelessly working to provide for her family and those disadvantaged around her and your own hopes and desires to create a path – all these things will motivate you and impact your life. These things may never leave you, but give you the strength you need to believe in yourself. You have to identify what is going to make you stronger, what is going to give you the determination you need to overcome the many hurdles along the way. More and more, you will develop a strong desire to find ways to empower creative people that come from similar backgrounds to yourself, and for them to be able to live up to their potential and take control of their own destiny so that they will be able to help others avoid a future of missed opportunities and regrets.  

Keep the faith Kanya, stay strong!” 

 PHOTO: Paul Harries

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