Adele to mark return to live performances at the BRIT Awards

Adele is set to make a return to live performance at Tuesday’s Brit Awards, the UK’s leading music prizes.

The soulful singer has nominations in four categories — including album of the year for 30 — and also is scheduled to perform during the ceremony at London’s O2 Arena.

It comes weeks after she cancelled a planned Las Vegas residency at the last minute, citing delivery delays and coronavirus illness in her crew.

Singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran and British rappers Little Simz and Dave also have four nominations apiece, including artist and album of the year.

Other multiple nominees include Sam Fender, Central Cee and David Guetta, while Taylor Swift will battle it out with Doja Cat, Olivia Rodrigo, Billie Eilish and Lil Nas X for international artist of the year.

In addition to Adele, there will be live performances from Dave, Sheeran, Fender, Holly Humberstone, Liam Gallagher and Little Simz during the show, hosted by comedian Mo Gilligan.

The Brits is one of the few awards shows not to be cancelled in the past two years because of the pandemic. The 2020 show took place weeks before Britain went into lockdown.

Last year’s awards were held in May as a test run for the return of large live events with an audience of 4,000, including health care workers given free tickets.

Organizers have shaken up the awards in recent years in response to criticisms that they failed to reflect the diversity of British music and were slow to embrace the emergence of genres including home-grown British grime and hip-hop.

In 2017, the academy of more than 1,000 music industry professionals that chooses winners was expanded in an attempt to make it more gender balanced and diverse.

In November, organizers announced they were scrapping separate male and female artist categories for awards including UK and international artist of the year.

Organizers said the change would celebrate artists “solely for their music and work, rather than how they choose to identify or as others may see them.” - AP