Wednesday 26 August 2009

Secret Histories: Phil Collins and the MOWO Awards

So, I've just written a news piece about the MOBO (music of black origin) Awards, which are happening next month. Event, the magazine I work for, may be attending the celebrations but, given what I know about the show's history, you'd have to hire a team of burly meatheads to force me into the star-studded ceremony.

My aversion to attending is not motivated by a belief that most modern r'nb is over-produced fluff (which it is) or because I'm a massive racist (which I'm not). The real reason I now carry precautionary cyanide pills is because of my ungodly fear of emerging from the ceremony with an newfound gravitas for the career of rotund drumming midget, Phil Collins.

You won't read this in your school text books, but the 2000 MOBO Awards was scene to the most heinous of mass indoctrinations. Its victims- entertainers from the world of black music- were subjected to a potent dose of pro-Genesis radiation, dealt by a so far unidentified pair of youngsters from stage-right during a particularly self-indulgent performance by Craig David.

The potent blast went largely unnoticed (such is the hypnotic lure of CD's unique beard topiary) but caused a spontaneous and unexplainable outpouring of bald drummer-love from black musicians everywhere, ultimately culminating in a veritable fruity guff of an album Urban Renewal: a tribute to Phil Collins.

The plot, of course, was masterminded by the pint-sized maniac himself who, since the dawn of disco music, had harboured a crippling rage at how white folk were being made to look uncoordinated and goofy by the emerging black music scene.

Collins' waking hours were spent searching for, and secretly financing, credible white alternatives to the likes of Michael Jackson, Tupac and the NWA. His bitterness, however, would only to grow stronger as he witnessed the public backlash to his carefully selected young fledglings: Rick Astley, Bryan Adams and Celine Dion.

Come 1998, fresh out of rehab from a harrowing Tab Clear addiction, Collins took matters into his own hands. He developed a mind-altering radiation frequency which, in tests, caused subjects to label In the Air of Tonight, "life affirming", "heartwarming" and "radically inventive".

For a while the plan worked, and Phil acted quickly to capitalize on his early-millennial success. His next project would be his most ambitious undertaking, the MOWOs, a celebration of white people's additions to rad new music, mainly focusing on the cutting-edge scenes in country and western, opera and English Baroque Chamber music.

The ceremony would be nothing if not memorable. East 17's Brian Harvey was set to make a speech about his influence on black fashion, whilst TV niceguy Ben Fogle had penned a stirring dialogue on how a Charles Mingus record inspired him to row across the Atlantic naked with another public schoolboy.

Sadly, after playing around with radiation, amongst other things, Collins was now an empty shell of a man, as documented to harrowing effect in this video, in which the once noble man is clearly docile, mute and in need of assistance from an entourage of rap musicians.



(PS- Yes, this was an overly long blog post to basically point out that I find Phil's presence in this video endlessly hilarious)

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