“Nothing Short Of Disrespectful” Mahalia Hits Out At BRITs R&B Exclusion

Mahalia has called out the BRIT Awards for excluding UK R&B artists.

The nominations for this year’s BRIT Awards were made public yesterday – January 12th – including the freshly minted Pop/R&B section. As many had predicted, pop artists vastly out-weigh the R&B selections – in fact, there doesn’t seem to be any R&B nominations.

In that category, Cat Burns, Charli XCX, Dua Lipa, Harry Styles, and Sam Smith will be competing with one another – all great artists, but hardly R&B.

Mahalia used Twitter to get her point across, first jokingly tweeting:

Desperately searching for the R&B act @BRITs https://t.co/clqzdJ4tWS pic.twitter.com/UPhQLYxPzc

— mahalia (@mahalia) January 12, 2023

She later expanded on this, saying the exclusive of R&B acts from the BRIT nominations list was “nothing short of disrespectful”. Mahalia commented: “Winning awards isn’t the reason why we make and release music. We do this shit out of love. But, at this point, it’s nothing short of disrespectful.”

“I’m sorry but UK R&B right now is THRIVING” she said. Mahalia also asked the BRITs to simply made a stand-alone R&B category: “Forget putting us in this category. Give us our own!!!!! How many times do we have to scream at you?”

Forget putting us in this category. Give us our own!!!!! How many times do we have to scream at you? @BRITs

mdash; mahalia (@mahalia) January 12, 2023

She’s not alone, either. In a widespread online outcry, numerous artists raised their voices. Tiana Major9 added:

Are you purposely trying to antagonise R&B artists? https://t.co/0PLT1PuI5a

— Tiana Major9 (@TianaMajor9) January 12, 2023