Winner of BBC Music Introducing’s artist of the year announced

British-Jamaican singer Celeste has been crowned BBC Music Introducing artist of the year.

The rising star, who was raised in Brighton, won the award after a big year in which she released an EP entitled Lately, unveiled her hit single, Strange, and performed a string of festival dates.

Celeste was told she had won the coveted prize for emerging talent by Radio 1’s Huw Stephens.

She said: “I performed a song called Strange that I wrote for the first time at the BBC Music Introducing show at The Lexington… you never know how you’re going to feel when you perform something for the first time and how people are going to react to it, and I had such a warm response and it seemed like it was a memorable song for people in that moment.

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“That was definitely one of my highlights of the year, so thank you very much!”

Previous winners of the award include Catfish and The Bottlemen, Jack Garratt, Izzy Bizu, Declan McKenna and Tom Grennan.

Stephens, presenter of BBC Introducing on Radio 1, said: “Celeste has made so many fans this year, and BBC Music Introducing have been so happy and proud to support her talent at every given opportunity over the last few years.

“On stage and on the airwaves, we’ve heard Celeste at her brilliant best and her BBC Music Introducing artist of the year award is very deserved.”

Editor of BBC Music Introducing’s editor Tom Billington added: “At BBC Music Introducing we live for those moments when you hear an artist for the first time and they stop you in your tracks.

“That’s when you know they’re something special, and that’s what happened with Celeste.”

Celeste is currently touring across Europe with Michael Kiwanuka ahead of her April 2020 tour.

The full interview with the singer is on BBC Introducing on Radio 1 with Huw Stephens from 11pm on December 8.