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‘It was so emotional’: the duo who helped rapper Dave stun the Brits

<span>Photograph: Adrian Dennis/AFP</span>
Photograph: Adrian Dennis/AFP

Amber Rimell and Bronski were in their studio when a call came through last December. The 21-year-old rapper, Dave, had been asked to perform at the Brit awards. He wanted to play the piano and perform his song Black. Could the two creative directors help make it an unforgettable moment?

On Tuesday evening, wearing a crisp white suit against an inky black stage, Dave gave what has been hailed by the music industry as one of the greatest Brits performances and “the best political speech ... in a decade”.

In the week in which the government unveiled a controversial new immigration system and No 10 refused to deny whether the PM agreed with an adviser who suggested black people were mentally inferior, Dave’s decision to use his platform to give voice to the black British experience was particularly resonant.

In an extended version of his song, with new verses written for the night, south London’s hottest star demanded justice for the Windrush generation and the victims of Grenfell, called the media to account for the treatment of Meghan Markle and declared Boris Johnson “a real racist”. The O2 arena gave him a standing ovation and the performance immediately began trending online. But how did it all come together?

“With five minutes of adrenaline and two months’ planning and rehearsals,” jokes Rimell, a former choreographer, who helped head a team of 16. She and Bronski run Tawbox, the studio behind Stormzy’s headline set at Glastonbury last year and Rita Ora’s Phoenix arena tour. She watched Dave from the side of the stage.

“We had two camera rehearsals. In the second one there were about 30 people in the room and at the end you could hear a pin drop,” she says. “I knew what was coming but it was still so emotional on the night – especially seeing how much it connected with all the young kids at the front and how much it meant to them.

“It wasn’t a typical Brits performance, there wasn’t a huge cheer at the end. People were stunned. They couldn’t believe what they saw.”

Bronski adds: “He didn’t give it his everything until the actual night. Even we were blown away.”

The rapper, also a classically-trained pianist, was nominated for four Brits and won best British album for his debut work, Psychodrama. Born David Orobosa Omoregie, the youngest of three brothers to Nigerian parents, he won an Ivor Novello award for best contemporary song when he was 19 and has become only the second artist in history to take the best album award at the Brits and the Mercury prize in the same year.

Did his team expect the impact the Brits would have? “The message was the most important – that was Dave’s heart and his voice,” says Bronski. “At no point was there ever any discussion on what Dave should say. No one on his management or creative team were involved with persuading him one way or the other.”

Tawbox focused on the look, feel and pace of Dave’s moment. “We designed the monochromatic staging – clean white lines and a black and white piano – to look minimal, even though it was pretty technical; we had to manipulate 3D technology to project the grid and the visuals,” says Bronski, “but we wanted to keep it as simple and subtle as possible.”

Psychodrama has given Dave two No 1 singles. After debuting in the top slot and after 50 weeks on the album chart, last week it climbed back 57 places to number 14.

Joined on stage by his black-suited producer, Fraser T Smith at the piano, Dave’s performance included a tribute to Jack Merritt, the prison rehabilitation officer killed in last November’s London Bridge attack.

Merritt had worked with Christopher Omoregie, Dave’s older brother who was jailed in 2012 for a gang murder. Merritt’s parents, Anne and Dave, and friends were given tickets to the Brits. “We were blown away,” Dave Merritt told the Observer. “Jack knew Dave on a personal level because he worked with Chris. They weren’t best mates but Jack went to see him perform a couple of times. We were so touched that Dave wrote a verse for Jack, we had no idea it was coming. It moved us to tears.”