Dua Lipa, the UK’s popstar princess, took home both the British Female Solo Artist and British Album awards for her chart dominating disco project Future Nostalgia.
Her heart warming speech called for Boris Johnson to approve “a fair pay rise” for frontline NHS staff. “It’s very good to clap for [frontline NHS staff], but we need to pay them,” Lipa stated as she dedicated her award to healthcare pioneer Dame Elizabeth.
She then went on to dedicate her album award to Folajimi Olubunmi-Adewole and Joaquin Garcia who saved a woman who had fallen in the river Thames in April, calling for the Brits to create a bravery award in their honor. Dua Lipa is now a rightful winner of five Brit Awards, cementing her position as one of the UK’s most successful pop stars.
Little Mix made history by becoming the first all-female band to win the British Group award, joining previous all-male winners Five Star, Stereo MCs and Gorillaz.
The fact that it’s taken this long for a female group to receive this accolade shows how male dominated the UK is, and Leigh-Anne Pinnock highlighted this saying: “It’s not easy being a female in the UK pop industry. We’ve seen the white male dominance, misogyny, sexism and lack of diversity. We’re proud of how we’ve stuck together, stood our ground, surrounded ourselves with strong women and are now using our voices more than ever.”
Twenty-year-old Arlo Parks received the breakthrough artist award, with her almost poetic and emotive storytelling debut album ‘Collapsed in Sunbeams’. Across the pond, Los Angeles trio Haim won Best International Group – becoming the first all female group to do so in nearly two decades, following iconic girl group Destiny’s Child. Billie Eilish won International Female and Taylor Swift became the first women to receive the Global Icon award.
Swift gave a poignant speech further addressing the hardship of being a woman within the industry. “There is no career path that comes free of negativity,” she said on receiving the award in person. “If you’re met with resistance that probably means that you’re doing something new.”
This industry shift of recognising women at award ceremonies has been a refreshing sight, as last year the Brits was heavily criticised for their prominent male bias. Mable was the only female pop singer nominated across 25 categories.
It may be hard to create an even keel at award ceremonies with genre, ethnic representation and gender but it's amazing to see that The Brits are trying to meet the standard.
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