Before the MOBO Awards launched in the 1990s, getting Black music formally recognised was a bit of a patchy process. Radio play alone, at least on the mainstream stations, was difficult enough, but in 1981 Radio 1 DJ Tony Williams founded the British Reggae Industry Awards, just as the UK was finding its voice in reggae with the lover's rock movement.

This second edition, hosted in the Rainbow Suite in Kensington, was a huge moment for reggae in the UK and some of the genre's biggest names gathered there. Aside from handing out awards, there were also some pretty legendary performances. Carroll Thompson performed "Just A Little Bit", but later in the night Thompson joined the Queen of Lovers Rock herself Janet Kay along with Winston Reedy and Trevor Walters for a stunning performance of “Lovely Day”, a signature hit for Kay and Thompson that remains a lovers rock anthem to this day.

As a side note, Janet Kay also performed what is arguably her biggest hit of all, "Silly Games", which was the informal theme of Lovers Rock from Steve McQueen's Small Axe anthology that went out via Amazon Prime in 2020.

Williams, who was host for the night, told the BBC: "People always say reggae is a back street thing, well we decided to take reggae upfront and prove that reggae belongs on the front line, so to speak, as our front line, if you know what I mean. So we decided to put reggae in nice places, like this, the Rainbow Suite tonight."