NME Awards and a Series of Unfortunate Events

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By: Kinga Balasz

Social media platforms are bursting with tweets and videos about controversial events that took place on a Wednesday night in London. I bet that after scrolling through Twitter- you already know who Slowthai is. His latest, strongly political album “Nothing Great About Britain”, met huge acclaim within the United Kingdom, as well as outside the borders. He won two nominations for “Best Collaboration” and ironically, “Hero Of The Year”.

Katherine Ryan, who hosted the night alongside Julie Adenuga made a joke about being attracted to the young rapper and invited him on stage, she then continued the banter with the artist until he crossed the line. He hugged her for so long it was uncomfortable for everyone to watch, he then said, "Baby girl, I don't want to have to do this to you right now, but everybody – she needs to understand the levels right now." Looks like 25 year old rapper took jokes too far and too seriously. 

Katherine, who is also a comedian managed to play it off and roast him in response to his creepy behaviour. She finished him with "Thank you for the attention, you are younger than my babysitter" as he was walking off the stage. We stan a powerful woman. 

Slowthai jumped back on the stage, Ryan continued the banter saying "I'm a balls girl – get your balls out." And "I would love you to trim my bush”, which I thought that was unnecessary, and as much as I respect Katherine for playing the role and being so patient with Slowthai, I can’t understand why she would make things worse, especially where he clearly thought they were having a sexual moment. As he was walking of the stage she added "I'm so wet, I'm going to slip off of these stairs."

The crowd was in shock, as you can see on videos everyone was raging with anger. Even Taylor Swift called it “the craziest awards show” she had ever been to, so that really must’ve been crazy. 

When Slowthai collected his award for “Hero Of The Year”, someone in the crowd called him a ‘misogynist’ showing him a middle finger. Young rapper shouted back "I'm misogynistic? I'm misogynistic? F*** off. I stand for equality. I stand for equality. If you can't take a joke, sit down. If you can't take a joke, sit down”. Maybe my sense of humour is bad but I didn’t find him creeping on Katherine ‘funny’. 

He threw his drink and a microphone at the person who he got into an argument with, then literally jumped off the stage to fight him- he was stopped by the security and dragged out of there, so was the other man.

As the awards show continued, Matty Healy of The 1975 during his performance, commented on the whole situation with “Everyone send your thoughts to slowthai, f*** knows where he is but bless the boy.. f****** nighmare”, which I found hilarious. Top quote of the night.  

After the event, Slowthai apologised to Katherine for his “shameful actions” and said “I am not a hero”. 

Disclaimer - This article is the opinion of the writer and not Keep Cardiff Live!