It might now be twenty years since the Spice Girls took to the stage to give their iconic Brits performance in 1997 (girl power) and even longer since Jarvis Cocker mooned during Michael Jackson’s performance of the Earth Song (pre woke), but the Brits are determined to prove that they’ve still got it.
2017 will henceforth be remembered as the year the Brit Awards got woke. Despite the fact that grime has been ‘a thing’ for over a decade, it was finally represented (by Stormzy and Skepta) in the line-up (albeit somewhat censored in Skepta’s caseand, in Stormzy’s case, alongside Ed Sheeran) and Katy Perry’s performance was v v political.
We’d expect nothing less, though, following her Grammys performance. Only two weeks ago did KP take to the stage wearing an armband which read ‘PERSIST’ while the US constitution was projected behind her for all to see. This, she says, is the era of ‘purposeful pop’.
As KP continues to ‘open up to consciousness’, having realised ‘how asleep’ she was and ‘how ok with it’ she was, she’s giving us all sorts of food for thought. At last night’s awards she performed her new single, Chained To The Rhythm, alongside two giant, dancing and hand holding skeletons which bore more than a striking resemblance to Donald Trump and Theresa May.
Do you think Theresa May watches the Brits? She doesn’t seem to be that keen on fashion week, so maybe this is more her cup of tea? Imagine her sitting down with Philip, perhaps they’ve got a bottle of wine on the go, maybe they’re on the Tea Pigs camomile, to watch the show. She’s looking forward to it, hoping to zone out for a bit and there it is: acerbic political satire being served up by none other than Katy Perry. Zing.
Behind Perry stood rows of backing dancers dressed as white houses (yep, that’s right). So many metaphors, so many. One of the white houses actually fell off the stage at one point, we’ve yet to confirm this with KP’s reps, but we’re pretty sure it was a comment on the severity of Britain’s housing crisis.
We feel you Katy. We’re really glad that Gavin Barwell is addressing the issue too.
Is there anything else you should know? Not really TBH. The Chainsmokers performed (no, I don’t know who they are either), as did Little Mix and people are, understandably, pretty cross that Dermot O’Leary was allowed to say ‘batshit’ while Skepta’s naughty bits were muted.
There were moving tributes to George Michael and David Bowie. Little Mix looked nice. Robbie Williams was also there.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.