Kanya King, MOBO Awards founder and Black music champion, dies at 57

Kanya King, MOBO Awards founder, dies at 57

Kanya King, founder and CEO of the MOBO Awards, has died at 57 after a battle with colon cancer. According to Billboard, the organization confirmed she "passed away peacefully after a courageous and characteristically determined battle with colon cancer" on Wednesday, June 3, surrounded by her family and close friends. King is survived by her son, Jem.

Thirty years of cultural justice

King cofounded the MOBO Awards in 1996 alongside Andy Ruffell. Born in Kilburn, north London in 1969 to a Ghanaian father and Irish mother, she was working as a TV researcher when she launched the event. To fund it, she remortgaged her own house. The ceremony went on to celebrate a landmark 30th anniversary in 2026.

Over the decades, the MOBOs became a significant platform for Black British music, championing genres that mainstream institutions largely ignored. "Whether that was early U.K. R&B, garage and grime to Afrobeats," King told Billboard, "in many cases, the MOBOs gave artists their first national platform at a time when others wouldn't." Artists including Stormzy, Amy Winehouse, 50 Cent, Sade, and Central Cee all received prizes at the ceremony, while Rihanna (2006), Lauryn Hill (2005), and Destiny's Child (1999) performed there over the years.

Recognition and illness

King was awarded an MBE in 1999 and elevated to a CBE in 2018. In 2024, she announced a diagnosis of stage four colon cancer. At the MOBOs in February 2025, she was characteristically direct: "I never allowed someone to define my limits. Not in life. Not in business. And I'm certainly not going to have that happen now."

The MOBOs statement does not soften what she built. "What Kanya created was never simply an awards ceremony," it reads. "It was an act of cultural justice."

"The world was a profoundly better place with Kanya King in it," the organization added.