Ezra Collective were named Group of the Year at the BRIT Awards 2025 with Mastercard.
The jazz quartet - which consists of Femi Koleoso, TJ Koleoso, Ife Ogunjobi, James Mollison and Joe Armon-Jones -had fought off competition from Bring Me the Horizon, Coldplay, The Cure and The Last Dinner Party to win their first BRIT on Saturday (01.03.25) evening.
Speaking live on stage at London's O2 Arena, frontman Femi said: "First and foremost, let me thank my lord and saviour Jesus Christ."
The 'God Gave Me Feet For Dancing' hitmaker met at the jazz programme Tomorrow's Warriors in 2012, and Femi went on to insist that encouraging young people to take up music will be the "solution" to a number of societal probelms.
He said: "Secondly, I've banged this drum a number of times and I will continue to do so until this country gets it. This moment right here is because of the great youth clubs and the great teachers and the great schools that support young people playing music. "
The singer also noted that by getting children interested in musical instruments is the way forward because it will given them something to "aspire" to and a "goal" to work towards in life.
He added: "The reason that we continue to bang this drum is because so many of the problems that face wider society in the UK, we're unsure how to fix it but the solution lies with giving a young person a trumpet, the solution lies with giving the young person a saxophone. When you do that, you give them a dream, an aspiration and a goal."
