The NI Music Prize ceremony took place on Thursday night, November 12, with an online broadcast streamed on YouTube.
The awards ceremony, which takes place annually, celebrates the best of Northern Irish music.
Awards up for grabs include: Best Album, Best Single, Best Live Act, and the Oh Yeah Award for best emerging act.
The ceremony was moved online this year due to ongoing Covid restrictions.
Armagh artist Kitt Philippa won the award for Best Album at this year’s NI Music Prize supported by PPL with her album Human. There were 11 other album’s shortlisted for the award including Arborist – A Northern View, Arvo Party – Love Above All, Careerist – Weird Hill, Ciaran Lavery – Please Stay, bb, Joel Harki – Never Happy, Junk Drawer – Ready For The House, Malojian – Humm , Our Krypton Son – Modern Ruins, Phil Kieran – Life Cycling, The Darkling Air – Ancestor and The Lost Brothers – After The Fire After The Rain.
Supported by Help Musicians the ‘Best Single’ category was won by Arbortist for ‘Here’s Comes The Devil’. Also, nominated were Bicep – ‘Atlas’, Cherym – ‘Abigail’, Joshua Burnside – ‘The Only Thing I Fear’, New Pagans – ‘Charlie Has The Face Of A Saint’, Ryan Vail, & Elma Orkestra – ‘Love’.
New Pagans took home the Best Live Act award. On their website organisers explained the category. “It has been a devastating year for live music, there have essentially been no gigs or concerts in front of a live audience in venues since March. The announcement of a ban on live music last week was yet another blow to our music scene. When we were co-ordinating for this year we considered not having a Best Live category, but this felt almost like giving up on what we know will return when there is a safe opportunity to do so. The time scale for the category is July 2019 – July 2020 and so there was much great live music to recall and celebrate. In the spirit of this we are forging ahead and are pleased to announce the following shortlist for Best Live.” Nominees included And So I Watch You From Afar, Problem Patterns, and Ryan Vail, & Elma Orkestra.
The Oh Yeah Contender of the Year supported by ATL Introducing was won by Sasha Samara. Nominees included Gender Chores, Jordan Adetunji, and Problem Patterns.
You can watch back the NI Music Prize and live performances here:
