Roots Manuva has Mercury Prize trophy returned after moving home and new owners finding it in shed

26 March, 2024

Roots Manuva performs at the BBC 6 Music Festival at Motion on February 12, 2016 in Bristol, England.

Roots Manuva has had his Mercury Prize trophy returned after moving house and accidentally leaving it behind.

Manuva – whose real name is Rodney Hylton Smith – took home the award at the 2002 Mercury Prize for his album ‘Run Come Save Me’.

Shared in August 2001, the LP marked his second studio album, following on from his 1999 breakthrough debut, ‘Brand New Second Hand’. It also contained what remains to be his biggest hit ‘Witness (1 Hope)’, and was named by NME as being “Brit-rap’s finest hour to date”.

Now, 22 years since he took home the award, Roots Manuva has confirmed that he has had the trophy returned to him after he moved house and accidentally left it behind.

He shared the news on his X/Twitter page earlier today (March 26), thanking the two new inhabitants of his home for finding the award and getting in touch. “Massive shout out to Anna and Alex who found my Mercury Prize in their shed in Sheffield and have sent it back to me,” he wrote.

He also responded to a user who asked about how it got left behind, confirming that he accidentally forgot to pack it up with the rest of his belongings.

Arriving in 2001 via Big Dada Records, the album remains the musician’s most commercially successful album to date – having peaked at Number 33 on the UK albums charts and entering the Billboard 200 in France.

It has gone on to be certified Gold, and was nominated alongside David Bowie’s ‘Heathen’, The Coral’s self-titled album, Beverley Knight’s ‘Who I Am’, Ms. Dynamite’s ‘A Little Deeper’ and more.

Since then, Roots Manuva has shared numerous other albums, including ‘Awfully Deep’ (2005), ‘Slime & Reason’ (2008), ‘Duppy Writer’ (2010) and ‘4everevolution’, which arrived in 2011.

His latest studio album was ‘Bleeds’, which he shared back in 2015.

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