Sampa the Great has won the 13th Australian Music prize for her debut album Birds and the Bee9.
This musician Sampa Tembo, beat eight other shortlisted artists, including Paul Kelly and Jen Cloher. And in the end Sampa the Great managed to take out the annual $30,000 prize.
The prize has been running since 2005. It is voted on by a panel of music industry figures, journalists and other artists, and is funded by music licensing organisation PPCA.
Previous winners of the prize are AB Original, singer-songwriter Courtney Barnett, and rock bands Augie. This also includes, March, the Drones and the Jezabels.
Prize judge Mikey Cahill described Sampa the Great’s album as having “an openness to the future”, saying she was a poet “using hip hop and soul to connect and hit the ground gunning”.
