E
ffortlessly stylish with an air of old school charm, Kanya King
breezes into the studio and settles down for our interview. But life hasn’t always been this glamorous for Kanya. “I come from a large family.
I’m one of nine children, and I’m the youngest girl. In fact, ‘Kanya’ means the youngest one”, says Kanya. “My family definitely faced discrimination. My parents came here at the age of 18 roughly to pursue their goals, and they came here at a time when there were a lot of jokes about the Irish and you’d have notices and boards that said ‘No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs’, so you can imagine. And my mother being from Ireland, my father being Ghanaian with a strong African accent, people would make fun. Discrimination was rife at that particular time in the ‘60s. I think sometimes my mum would try to find somewhere for us to live, and she’d have to persuade the landlord to rent a flat to us, then when my father came home from work, they’d kick us out. I suppose being a strong Irish woman, my mother had to get on with it really. She had to provide a roof over our heads so it was hard.”
Despite these hardships,
her father had faith that Kanya would be become a success in this society. He told her something that really resonates with the whole theme of this publication – he said to her “be the best you can be”. This spurred her on to make something of her life. A natural innovator, Kanya looked for a gap in the market – something that was in tune with her passions, and she stopped at nothing to make it happen. “Growing up in a family
loving music, listening to different genres, and having a lot of friends that were phenomenal musicians”, Kanya remembers. “But there was nothing that they could aspire to, so they’d always look to America.” This is where the idea of the MOBOs germinated. “To be honest the MOBO Awards is not something that I set up to do. I wanted someone else to do it. I was hoping someone else would put on a show where the kind of music I was into was featured – Hip-Hop, R&B, Reggae. This was what young people were listening to, and there was no vehicle or platform where young people could aspire to be on. We have phenomenal talent here in the UK, and so I started putting on gigs in my spare time. From
BELOW LEFT
Kanya with Duncan Bannatyne
BELOW MIDDLE
Rihanna attending the MOBOs
BELOW RIGHT Kanya on the red carpet with Alesha Dixon
no money, because I had no money to market it, just pure word of mouth, which is obviously the strongest form of marketing. And it’s low cost.” Looking at what the MOBOs
has become, it is difficult to believe that it wasn’t smooth- sailing from the start. When Kanya came up with the idea for the MOBOs, Brit Pop was in its prime, and not much attention was being given to urban music in the UK. However, Kanya isn’t one to give up on her dreams, and she fought through, and like the resourceful woman that she is, she made a plan.
“I thought to myself, if you
believe in it so much, put your money where your mouth is”, Kanya says. “I was fortunate because I got on the property ladder from an early age. Coming from a large family, I couldn’t wait to move out, so I got on the housing ladder and then re-mortgaged my property.” When the MOBOs finally
became a reality, with the first MOBO Awards ceremony
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