MOBO Awards founder and CEO, pioneer and tireless champion of Black British music, Kanya King CBE has passed away 🕊️

News of her passing broke earlier today, June 5. According to the official statement released by the MOBO Organisation, King passed on June 3 after an ongoing battle with colon cancer.

Standing defiantly on the MOBO stage in Newcastle in February 2025, just months after her diagnosis, she told the audience: "I never allowed anything to define my limits. Not in life. Not in business. And I’m certainly not going to have that happen now."

King's legacy is impossible to deny. She founded the MOBOs 30 years ago as a single mother, remortgaging her home to fund the first edition of the awards ceremony. With King at the helm, the MOBOs was a fulcrum of culture, the backdrop to some of the most iconic, pivotal moments in the history of British music. Leading the way always, King and the MOBO Awards' support of grime, UK garage, jungle, Afroswing and so many other Black-created genres, were invaluable in defining Black British music and its place on the world stage.

Kanya King's passing leaves an incalculable void in British culture. She will never be replaced and never forgotten.

May she rest in eternal peace 🤍