David Bowie’s last album, Blackstar, earned him a posthumous prize at the 2017 South Bank Sky Arts Awards on Sunday (July 9).
David Bowie was up against the likes of The 1975 and Skepta for the Pop Music award for his 25th studio album, which he released two days before his death in January 2016, and he emerged victorious on Sunday at London’s Savoy Hotel.
His pal Iggy Pop accepted the prize on his behalf, and hailed Bowie for changing “the game in rock and roll and in popular music” in a video message recorded from his U.S. home.
He also described how they shared a place in London “at a beautiful old Victorian house that was looked after by a lady named Mrs. Potter” and how the musician “didn’t want to miss” host Melvyn Bragg’s The South Bank Show during its original run from 1978 to 2010.
Iggy then shared how producer Tony Visconti would bring around a bunch of TV shows for them to watch to “interrupt the hilarity of the Monty Python stuff.”
The British awards ceremony also honors talent in British theatre, television, film and dance. Other winners included series Happy Valley, which took home the TV drama gong, Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s show Fleabag for Comedy and Ken Loach’s I, Daniel Blake for Film.
West End play Harry Potter And The Cursed Child continued its award haul with a theatre prize, while stage mogul Andrew Lloyd Webber was honored with the Outstanding Achievement accolade.
Actress Glenn Close, who stars in the revival of musical Sunset Boulevard, for which Lloyd Webber wrote the music, praised the “cosmically witty” composer and said, “He has written tunes which will stay in people’s hearts forever, generation after generation.”
Theatre producer Sir Cameron Mackintosh called his former collaborator “the biggest catalyst in the musical world in my lifetime” and said modern stage musicals wouldn’t be the same without his friend.
The ceremony will be broadcast in the U.K. on Sky Arts on Wednesday.
