Chase & Status and Sophie Kennard to be honoured at Artist & Manager Awards | Management

Staged by the Featured Artists Coalition (FAC) and the Music Managers Forum (MMF), the event returns to London’s Bloomsbury Big Top on Thursday, 21 November.

For 2024, the awards for Artist Of The Year and Manager Of The Year will be combined, with Chase & Status and Sophie Kennard, co-founder of Frame Artists, sharing the honour. 

Chase & Status (Will Kennard and Saul Milton) won a BRIT Award this year and scored their first No.1 single in the shape of Backbone, which featured vocals from Stormzy. The duo have Top 5 albums and seven UK Top 10 singles to their name so far.

Also this year, they picked up a BRIT Billion Award for one billion UK streams. 

Sophie Kennard previously ran Chase & Status’ label MTA Records and co-founded Frame Artists with Becci Abbott Black in April 2020.

After almost two decades at the forefront of drum & bass, and with Sophie’s support and expertise, Will and Saul continue to break fresh ground

Annabella Coldrick & David Martin

Their roster also includes Eats Everything, Patrick Topping, Arielle Free, DJ Boring, Effy, Ewan McVicar, Melé, Mozey and Storm Mollison.

Annabella Coldrick, MMF chief executive, and FAC CEO David Martin said: “Chase & Status and Sophie Kennard have had a remarkable year. After almost two decades at the forefront of drum & bass, and with Sophie’s support and expertise, Will and Saul continue to stray from their lane, break fresh ground and champion a new generation of artists. Incredibly, Backbone, 2024’s all-conquering collaboration with Stormzy, has pushed them to even greater heights and the MMF and FAC are delighted to recognise Chase & Status and Sophie as our Artist & Manager Team Of The Year.”

The shortlist for Breakthrough Manager 2024, sponsored by Amazon Music, has also been unveiled, with the winner to be revealed at the ceremony, which will be hosted by BBC Radio 1Xtra’s Remi Burgz. The nominees are:

Alex Putman (TAAHLIAH, Jerskin Fendrix)
Dan Jenkins, Raw Power Management (Jordan Adetunji)
Jade Busola (Thisizlondon)
Jasmine Watts, Circuit Management (Sammy Virji)
Lauren Roth de Wolf, Wolves Music Management (Moonchild Sanelly, Africa Express, The Orchestra of Syrian Musicians)
Memz (ZieZie, hazey, prinz, Liilz, fangio, Jomokays)
Oran Barton, Attention Management (Barry Can’t Swim)
Thor Sutherland, Way Out Music (Songer, Yxng Dave, Blueboy & dash)
Scoop (Darkoo, Taves, BNXN (fka Buju), Tiwa Savage, Rose May Alaba)
Victoria de Juniac, VictoriaBDJ Management (Cian Ducrot, Tommy Lefroy)

Laura Lukanz, head of music industry, Amazon Music UK said: “Managers are the backbone of the music industry and often go unheralded. We are thrilled to team up with MMF to celebrate these brilliant individuals who have made such outstanding contributions to their artists’ careers.”

This year’s Artist & Manager Awards will also recognise the partnership between Pet Shop Boys and their manager Angela Becker, as well as the work of Yungblud and Special Projects Music.

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