Griff Named Winner Of The Brit Awards’ Rising Star Prize For 2021

Griff has been selected as the winner of the Brit Awards’ Rising Star prize which recognises the most promising new artist to watch for 2021.

She was up against Pa Salieu and Rina Sawayama as the final three chosen for the shortlist for the award. Griff was also on the BBC’s Sound Of 2021 poll but lost out to Coventry rapper Pa Salieu.

Griff, full name Sarah Faith Griffiths, is 20-years-old and from Kings Langley, Hertfordshire. She was behind Disney’s first Christmas TV advert last year, singing Love IS A Compass. You can watch the official video below.

“In my head I’m still screaming from the phone call when I found out,” Griff said in a statement. “It’s honestly such a miracle: how on earth did we manage to win a Brit and break through during a pandemic?”

Griff discovered music after hearing Stevie Wonder at the age of five and she learned to sing in her church choir but says “the first album I think I really loved out of choice was Taylor Swift’s Fearless.

She had her first recording session at the age of 10, “just doing embarrassing things in a band”. By the time she left school, she’d signed a deal with Warner Music, releasing her first single in July 2019, two weeks after she finished her A-levels. However, she didn’t jump straight in to releasing music, wanting to make sure she focused on school, as made clear in an interview with The Guardian:

“After teaching herself production using her brother’s copy of the music software Logic, a handful of early homemade demos caught the attention of a manager before she landed a record deal with Warners three years ago. ‘I didn’t know what a record deal was so I kept them waiting for a year – I wanted to finish school.’ In fact, she started using her textiles A-level immediately, eschewing designer labels in favour of her own self-made outfits in early photoshoots. ‘I just love creating things,’ she says of her DIY ethos. ‘I enjoy the challenge of envisioning something in your head and then making it come to life.'”

She described how she found out that she had won the Rising Star award while waiting for a taxi in an interview with the Brit Awards, which you can see below.

shoutout the cab driver for having to listen to me scream down the phone https://t.co/GpgWJideFC

— Griff (@wiffygriffy) March 19, 2021

You can preorder Griff’s new mixtape, as well as merch bundles and early access tour passes, from the Warners store, here