Ezra Collective win Mercury Prize for Where I'm Meant to Be

1. Ezra Collective win the Mercury Music Prize for best British or Irish album for Where I’m Meant to Be
2. Twelve artists were nominated for the prize which is decided on a 12-strong panel of judges
3. Young Fathers, Loyle Carner, Shygirl, Olivia Deane, Jockstrap and Arctic Monkeys among those shortlisted

That's a wrap

Barbara Tasch

Live reporter

Thanks very much for joining us as we listened to some great music and saw Ezra Collective win the 2023 Mercury Prize for their album Where I'm Meant To Be - the first-ever jazz album to win.

Big thanks to the BBC's music correspondent Mark Savage and Newsbeat reporter Megan Lawton for their live reporting from Hammersmith as well as entertainment reporter Steven McIntosh for his insights.

The writers this evening were Jacqueline Howard, Ece Goksedef, and Barbara Tasch. The editors were Heather Sharp and Rob Corp.

Mercury winners make the most of the moment

Megan Lawton

Reporting from the Hammersmith Apollo

Why keep to the stage when you’re the winners of the Mercury Prize.

In their celebratory performance the band took their instruments and roamed through the crowd.

It was only back in March that they last performed here at the Apollo in a sold-out show.

Earlier they told Newsbeat a Mercury nomination wouldn’t have even crossed their mind.

"Our priority would have been making sure the audience were having the best time," said the band's Femi Koleoso.

Ezra Collective's Koleoso thanks God and youth organisations

Femi Koleoso, lead drummer of 2023 Mercury Prize winner Ezra Collective, started by thanking God.

"If a jazz band winning the Mercury Prize doesn’t make you believe in God, I don't know what will," Koleoso said.

He said they had all met in a youth club and their success was a testimony to all the time and effort people all over the UK put into helping young people make music.

He said this was a win not just for them but for every single organisation.

Twelve judges decided which one of the 12 albums nominated this year would win, and decided on the "uplifting and timely" Where I'm Meant to Be.

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Members of Ezra Collective, Joe Armon-Jones, TJ Koleoso, Femi Koleoso, James Mollison and Ife Ogunjobi on stage after winning The Mercury Prize during The Mercury Prize 2023 awards show at Eventim Apollo

Big hugs and big up youth clubs

Megan Lawton

Reporting from the Hammersmith Apollo

And it’s Ezra Collective who’ve collected the big prize of the night!

Inside the Apollo the boys leapt up from their table and hugged each other tight.

On stage, surrounded by red confetti, lead drummer Femi bigged up his local youth club and all the organisations who’ve supported their career and continue to help young musicians.

He claimed it was a win, not just for them but for all aspiring musicians too.

Their album was described by judge Jamz Supernova as an “uplifting and timely record, the very best of where we are now in 2023”.

BreakingAnd the winner is...

DJ Jamz Supernova announces that the Mercury Prize for the best British or Irish album of 2023 goes to Ezra Collective for Where I’m Meant to Be.

Before we get the verdict - the nominees again

In case you're just joining us ready to hear who has won the 2023 Mercury Prize - here are the nominated artists and the albums up for the award:

• Arctic Monkeys - The Car
• Ezra Collective - Where I’m Meant to Be
• FredAgain... - Actual Life 3 (January 1 - September 9, 2022)
• Jessie Ware - That! Feels Good!
• J Hus - Beautiful And Brutal Yard
• Jockstrap - I Love You Jennifer B
• Lankum - False Lankum
• Loyle Carner - hugo
• Olivia Dean - Messy
• Raye - My 21st Century Blues
• Shygirl - Nymph
• Young Fathers - Heavy Heavy

What does a Mercury win mean?

Steven McIntosh

Entertainment reporter

The Mercury Music Prize occupies a unique space in the crowded world of music awards ceremonies.

First of all, there is only one prize. Anyone who has struggled through an entire Grammy Awards ceremony may be grateful that there aren’t dozens of categories to get through with the Mercury.

Instead there is just one award, recognising a single album by a British or Irish act (although every nominee gets a trophy and many perform at the ceremony).

But the main reason the Mercury Prize matters is the prestige a win can bring. This is an accolade which recognises creativity rather than commercial success.

Occasionally, the two things overlap. Arctic Monkeys’ debut album won the Mercury in 2006, the year it dominated the charts.

Often, however, the Mercury Prize is awarded to a less high-profile, even obscure act – a band or singer who isn’t necessarily a household name.

A Mercury win usually prompts a surge in album sales and can significantly boost an artist’s career. But it also increases the pressure on them. Expectations for an act’s follow-up album are significantly higher after a Mercury victory – a benchmark some artists find they struggle to match.

Who is Shygirl?

BBC

London producer Shygirl - aka Blane Muise - is a rapper, singer and songwriter with a distinctive sound.

The 30-year-old’s music displays restless exploration of vulnerability and sexual liberation.

Growing up in London’s Blackheath, Shygirl’s early EPs were filled with sex-positive messages presented with a sense of bravado.

And like many new and emerging artists, it was social media that played a big part in bringing her music to a wider audience.

The scream from the intro to the song Uckers went viral on TikTok, particularly among creators who would use it as the backing sound of make-up transition videos.

Getting ready to put the winner's name up in lights

Outside the Hammersmith Apollo staff are getting ready to place on the building's famous exterior the name of the artist the judges say has the best album of 2023.

BBC

Who is Fred Again..?

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Fred Gibson, aka house musician Fred Again.., is one of the best-connected people in the music industry.

Mentored by Brian Eno as a teenager, he made his name as a writer-producer on hits like George Ezra's Shotgun, Ed Sheeran's Bad Habits, Stormzy's Own It and Charli XCX's After The Afterparty.

In 2020, the Brits named him producer of the year. At 26, he was the youngest-ever person to receive the award.

Around the same time, he struck out as a solo artist, releasing a trilogy of albums that blended house beats with everyday sounds and conversations he collected on his phone.

While most dance music is framed as escapism, his songs are intimate and heartfelt.

You can read more about Fred Again..’s rise and his influences here.

Jockstrap - I Love You Jennifer B

Mark Savage

BBC Music correspondent

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Neon, the first track on Jockstrap's debut album I Love You Jennifer B, lulls you into a false sense of security - opening with 90 seconds of pastoral British folk music before singer Georgia Ellery's voice disintegrates and a distorted drum loop pierces the idyll.

That approach - of combining orchestral 60s pop with unhinged electronica - underpins the whole record. It's perplexing and beautiful, often at the same time.

Greatest Hits is a love letter to 80s pop, referencing Madonna's Like A Virgin over a dreamy St Etienne piano groove; and Concrete Over Water is a stunning six-minute ballad where a simple heartbreak gets magnified into a colossal, operatic melodrama. We've all been there.

It might not come as a surprise that the band were formed at the Guildhall School of Music, when Ellery, who was studying jazz, met Taylor Skye and was struck by the fact he was"wearing tartan pyjamas on his way to do laundry".

"It's exciting for us when we're making music to hear something that we possibly haven't heard before," they explained to The Forty-Five.

“There's a gap in the market in our brains and we're trying to fill it."

The critics said: "A record emblazoned with such pristine, disorienting, unsettling originality that at first, you don't quite know what to do with it." - NME

Up close: Mercury Prize nominees

The agency photographers have caught the nominees performing tonight at the Hammersmith Apollo.

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Raye

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Graham Hastings and Kayu Bankole of Young Fathers

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Jessie Ware

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Shygirl

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Loyle Carner

Arctic Monkeys - The Car

Mark Savage

BBC Music correspondent

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Returning to the cinematic, jazzy universe they discovered on Tranquillity Base Casino & Hotel, the Arctic Monkeys' seventh album The Car firmly rejects fans' hopes that they'd re-discover their indie rock roots.

But it's a sumptuously alluring record, full of doomed romance and rueful goodbyes.

Alex Turner says the lyrics have "a through-line of a production going on in the background". Not a film, necessarily (although there are references to Cinemascope and spy movies) but something artificial, where external forces are pulling the strings of his life.

That allows him to offer a meta-commentary on the band's career -"Puncturing your bubble of relatability / With your horrible new sound" - with Turner cast as a faded film star struggling to come to terms with their diminished status.

Ironically, however, the album finds the band with a renewed sense of purpose; stretching their sound even further into the realms of space rock.

The critics said: "Turner's observations and the way he relishes a smart turn of phrase bring these vignettes to life in a way that's almost frighteningly vivid, even when his circuitous melodies don't always land." - Uncut magazine

We're about 15 minutes away from finding out this year's winner

We know Mark Savage previously said the organisers of the Mercury Prize consider all the 12 nominees to be winners - there can still only be one artist who has what the judges decide is the best British or Irish album of the year.

And we're about 15 minutes away from finding out who that is.

Obviously we'll break that news right here - and bring you the reaction in the room from Newsbeat's Megan Lawton.

Not long now (and there's cake)

Megan Lawton

Reporting from the Hammersmith Apollo

That’s it, the performances are over and now it’s a waiting game until we find out who the winner is.

For those lucky enough to be at a table, the nominees included, cake stands of bite size treats are served and bottles of bubbly continue to flow.

Who has won the Mercury Prize in the past?

BBC

Arlo Parks won the Mercury in 2021

Here are the winning albums from the past decade:

2022: Little Simz - Sometimes I Might Be Introvert

2021: Arlo Parks - Collapsed In Sunbeams

2020: Michael Kiwanuka - KIWANUKA

2019: Dave - Psychodrama

2018: Wolf Alice - Visions Of A Life

2017: Sampha - Process

2016: Skepta - Konnichiwa

2015: Benjamin Clementine - At Least For Now

2014: Young Fathers - Dead

2013: James Blake - Overgrown

The winner of the first Mercury Prize, in 1992, was Primal Scream with Screamadelica. Suede, Pulp, M People, Elbow, Klaxons, Franz Ferdinand, Dizzee Rascal and Ms. Dynamite are among those who scooped the award over the two decades that followed. PJ Harvey is the only artist to win it twice - in 2001 and 2011.

Loyle Carner - Hugo

Mark Savage

BBC Music correspondent

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Like all good arguments, Loyle Carner's third album Hugo starts with blinding fury and ends with acceptance and forgiveness.

The South Londoner has always let real life inform his lyrics and this record is the real-time story of how becoming a father prompted him to examine his relationship with his own father, who'd been absent for most of his life.

The pair eventually reconnected through a series of driving lessons in his dad's car, nicknamed Hugo.

"To cut a long story short, we founded our relationship in that car. It became my safe space for conversation and shouting and apologising and crying," Carner told the BBC.

The overarching story allows him to investigate race, identity and belonging over a series of supple, emotionally-compelling hip-hop beats.

The critics said: "Hugo is the album many have been waiting and expecting Loyle Carner to create, it has an ambitious scope and doesn't disappoint." - Still Listening

Carner's track is about forgiveness

Mark Savage

Reporting from the Hammersmith Apollo

Loyle Carner is performing HGU, the final song of his Mercury-nominated album, Hugo - which is framed around a reconciliation with his estranged father.

The song is about making an active choice to forgive. Something that wasn’t always a certainty.

"Within rap, everyone else is like, 'If your dad left and he's rubbish, just let that anger be your motivation,'" he explained in liner notes for the record.

"That's cool to an extent, but it can cripple you if you let it go further than an initial youthful rebellion."

J Hus - Beautiful and Brutal Yard

Mark Savage

BBC Music correspondent

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J Hus put his stamp on British music with 2017's Common Sense, blending the diasporic influences of his London upbringing - Afroswing, grime, R&B - into something fresh and new.

It earned him a Mercury Prize nomination and a co-sign from rap superstar Drake - but, if anything, his 2020 follow-up, Big Conspiracy, was an even bigger success.

Then he disappeared, cancelling shows and sequestering himself in the studio, without the support of his longtime producer JAE5.

When he re-emerged in May, there was a harder edge to his sound, especially on the provocative comeback single It's Crazy, where he talks about the seductive power of violence and wonders if he's possessed by the devil.

That bloodthirst is recurring theme on his third album Beautiful and Brutal Yard, across tracks like Cream, Killy and the battle anthem Bim Bim.

But there's a spiritual side to J Hus, too, singing about the joys of dancing on Who Told You - a duet with Drake - and falling in love on My Baby.

Throughout, he's asking questions of himself, probing the darkness, working out what sort of man he wants to be as he approaches 30. He never alights on an answer, but the search has prompted some of his best music to date.

The critics said: "As a generation of UK rappers comes of age, Hus still leads the pack with his pitless charisma, linguistic inventiveness, and musical curiosity." - Telegraph

Love, not rivalry, on the red carpet

Megan Lawton

Reporting from the Hammersmith Apollo

BBC

You might assume there’s rivalry between tonight’s nominees, but on the red carpet, there was a whole lot of love.

Many of the artists have worked together, like Loyle Carner and Ezra Collective.

The rapper told me he loves seeing his mates do well, naming Olivia Dean - a fellow nominee who features on his album. He says he’s proud.

“She’s a really special person in my life and to share the stage with her is big for me because she’s magic.”