Saturday night saw the second annual NI Music Prize being awarded at the Mandela Hall in Belfast and NI social media was all a-flutter trying to guess who would win. For the uninitiated, the NI Music Prize is an award given at an event produced by the Oh Yeah Music Centre to celebrate, well, NI Music. The prize is sponsored by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland and has been quite a controversial event despite its short time on the NI music ‘scene’.
Check out the short and long list of nominated acts here. The big winner was Robyn G Shiels for his album ‘The Blood of the Innocents’ and Stuart Bailie, CEO of Oh Yeah said:
“Robyn was a deserved winner. He has been making exceptional music for many years now, but ‘The Blood Of The Innocents’ is a landmark record. It was a joy to hear him taking the applause at a capacity Mandela Hall and the NI Music Prize was an astounding way to end the Sound of Belfast programme.”
You can have a listen to, or even buy the album here. The main event however was when NI heroes Therapy? played the entirety of their million selling album ‘Troublegum’ to mark a career of 25 years after being awarded the Oh Yeah Legend Award.
