Over 70 songwriters have been nominated for the 2024 Ivor Novello Awards, with RAYE, Sampha and Yussef Dayes leading nominees.
The nominees were announced today (April 23) in eight categories including the Best Album, Best Contemporary Song and the Rising Star Award with Amazon Music. The awards ceremony with Amazon Music will take place on May 23 at Grosvenor House.
Sampha and Yussef Dayes have the most nominations with two each; each artist is contending for a Best Album award for their respective records ‘Lahai‘ and ‘Black Classical Music’. They also have been nominated together for Best Song Musically and Lyrically thanks to their collaboration ‘Spirit 2.0’, which appears on ‘Lahai’.
Other nominees for Best Album include RAYE’s debut album ‘My 21st Century Blues‘, Lankum’s ‘False Lankum‘ and CMAT‘s ‘Crazymad, For Me‘.
Elsewhere, Blur have also been nominated in the Best Song Musically and Lyrically category, 29 years on from their first Ivors nomination with ‘Parklife’. Tom Odell‘s ‘Black Friday’, The Japanese House‘s ‘Sunshine Baby’ and Victoria Canal‘s ‘Black Swan’ will also be competing for the title.
Meanwhile, the PRS For Music Most Performed Work award sees Jazzy and Kenya Grace receive their first Ivor nominations, with their songs ‘Giving Me’ and ‘Strangers’ respectively. Harry Styles has also been nominated for ‘As It Was’, along with the Ice Spice and PinkPantheress collaboration ‘Boy’s A Liar Pt. 2’ and Central Cee and Dave‘s song ‘Sprinter’.
Previous winners of the Ivors include Harry Styles, Charli XCX, Adele, Annie Lennox, Amy Winehouse, Paul McCartney and John Lennon.
The Ivors also include film/video game scores and TV soundtracks. Notable nominations include Jerskin Fendrix’s soundtrack for Poor Things, Daniel Pemberton’s score for Spider-man: Across The Spider-verse and Slow Horses Season 3, and Martin Phipps for the final season of The Crown. Nominated game scores include Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor and Tin Hearts.
NME spoke to Kamille last year about her Ivors win, with the artist saying: “Being amongst winners like Queen, U2, Noel Gallagher — I’m like, ‘Really? This is ridiculous. I think I’m the youngest Black women to win the award as well, which is mad. I’m here for it and I’m so grateful to be honoured in this way.”
In other news, Bruce Springsteen has been announced as the Ivor Novello Academy’s first international songwriter to become a Fellow.