05/06/2026
Kanya King CBE, founder and CEO of the MOBO Awards, passed away on June 3rd, 2026, after a courageous battle with colon cancer. She was 57.
Thirty years ago, she remortgaged her home alone, without institutional backing, without industry support to build a stage for Black music at a time when the world told her no one cared. Six weeks later, the first MOBO Awards broadcast to the nation. And nothing was ever the same again.
She didn't just create an awards show. She created a movement. A platform that reached hundreds of millions of people across the globe and gave Black artists, Black creatives, and Black culture the recognition they had always deserved.
She faced every obstacle — and her illness — with courage, faith, and an absolute refusal to be diminished.
"I never allowed someone to define my limits. Not in life. Not in business."
— Kanya King CBE
Her legacy transcends genre, geography, and generation. The 2026 MOBO Awards will be dedicated entirely to her memory.
From all of us at OAJ we honour a visionary who proved that one person's conviction can change culture forever.