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Dave was a worthy winner on a night stuffed with bold, chaotic performances and challenging music born of a vital, thrilling scene
Mercury prize 2019: rapper Dave wins for ‘exceptional’ Psychodrama
Media efforts to galvanise a bit of public interest in this year’s Mercury prize included a newspaper website’s story about bookmakers’ odds that seemed to think the 10/3 favourite was Sampha – who admittedly did win in 2017 but hasn’t actually released an album since – and a baffling broadsheet piece that unappealingly described 2018’s champions Wolf Alice as “archetypal indie introverts … like a Sylvia Plath poetry circle struggling to be heard over a Pixies tribute act”, but somehow still concluded “they were worthy winners”.
There seems to have been general agreement, however, that this year’s shortlist was the first in history to be dominated by music of a sociopolitical bent. This might have been a conscious decision on the part of the judging panel: an attempt to suggest a new vitality and relevance in an award ceremony that seems to have spent recent years relinquishing whatever grip it once had on the nation’s imagination. Continue reading...