Ms Dynamite receives MBE for services to music

Ms Dynamite has been awarded an MBE for services to music.
The rapper and singer, real name Niomi McLean-Daley, released her debut album A Little Deeper in 2002, which was highly acclaimed in both the U.K. and the U.S. following its release. The record won her the Mercury Music Prize, while she also received Brit Awards for Best British Urban Act and Best British Female Solo Artist in 2003.
The Dy-na-mi-tee hitmaker was rewarded for her contribution to the music industry by the Prince of Wales, who presented her MBE during a ceremony at Buckingham Palace on Thursday (13Dec18).
Prior to the event, the musician penned an op-ed for The Guardian regarding her decision to accept the honour, noting that receiving an MBE had never aligned with her long-held negative feelings towards empire and colonisation.
“So why, on Thursday, will I be at Buckingham Palace receiving that MBE for my services to music? What changed?” she wrote. “The invitation coincided with the Windrush scandal, where it emerged that people who had come to the UK from the Caribbean as British subjects before 1973 – as part of the effort to rebuild after the second world war – were wrongly detained, denied access to medical care and benefits to which they were entitled, and were in some cases deported.”
Though the 37-year-old believed this injustice “seemed to reinforce my decision to reject the honour,” after reading more stories about the Windrush generation and her own family’s experiences, she decided to accept the MBE to “honour my grandparents, and all of their generation, and the extraordinary sacrifices they made.”
“Nothing I have achieved would have been possible without them. I may get the recognition but the legwork was done for my generation by people like my grandparents, who don’t get the recognition,” she added. “It is important to me that their journey and everything they faced isn’t forgotten.”