Novello nominations doubly sweet for Laura

Singer gets chance to win twice only months after being let go by record label

Laura Mvula has been nominated for two Ivor Novello awards – months after being dropped from her record label Sony.

Mvula, 30, was announced yesterday as being in the running for Best Song Musically and Lyrically for 2016’s Overcome, while The Dreaming Room is up for the Album award.

Artists hoped the nomination would spur the Birmingham-born singer on after she said last month she learned through a seven-line email that Sony had dropped her.

Skepta, Adele and Nick Cave have also been nominated for the prestigious songwriters awards.

Overcome, which Mvula co-wrote with Nile Rodgers, is up against Telomere by the Mystery Jets’ Blaine Harrison and Henry Harrison and Black Man In A White World, written by Michael Kiwanuka and Dean Josiah.

The Dreaming Room faces competition from Nick Cave’s Skeleton Tree and Michael Kiwanuka’s Love & Hate.

Mercury-nominated Mvula told the BBC her former manager was told her contract would not be renewed in January before she was forwarded the email.

Mvula told the BBC: “I didn’t see anyone, I didn’t hear anybody’s voice. I just read words. It felt so cold and cruel.”

A Sony spokeswoman confirmed she had been dropped from the label but would not comment on the manner in which she was informed.

Mvula found support from London artist Dyo, who is nominated for Best Contemporary Song for co-writing Sexual, the hit song she performed alongside Neiked.

Dyo told the Press Association: “I feel like that’s something that’s really positive and if you are in a place where you’ve been dropped you can be discouraged, so I feel having this here is quite good.”

Dyo’s track is up against Man by Skepta and Queens Of The Stone Age’s Josh Homme. It will face Asap Rocky’s LoveSick.

Adele’s When We Were Young, co-written with Tobias Jesso Jr, is up for the PRS Music Most Performed Work award, which recognises songs that have received vast coverage.

She is up against two tracks by Coldplay, Adventure Of A Lifetime and Hymn For The Weekend, it was announced in London’s Ivy club.

The winners will be announced at a London awards ceremony on May 18.

Picture: PA. Laura Mvula has scooped two Ivor Novello nominations only months after Sony sent her a seven-line email telling her she was being dropped.

Fellow nominees, from top: Skepta, Adele and Nick Cave.