Clara Amfo on hosting the Brit Awards, Black representation, and why she deserves to be a ‘cover girl’
It’s edging into Friday evening and Clara Amfo has had a long week packed with back-to-back interviews, photoshoots, fashion week shows, Brit Awards rehearsals, and of course her daily Radio 1 show, but she’s radiant, cheerful and raring to go. “Let’s do this,” she laughs as she joins me on a Zoom video call from her small home office. She’s clearly excited as the countdown to her first time hosting the Brit Awards edges closer. “It’s something that’s always been on my bucket list,” she beams. “For British people, there are certain pop culture references that are just so deeply in our collective psyche. With the Brits, everyone talks about it, whether it’s at school, in the office, at your Saturday job, it’s ‘oh my gosh this person was robbed or I’m so happy that person won or did you see that speech? Or what were they wearing?’ I think that’s why I’m so happy to be doing it.”
It’s one of Amfo’s biggest live jobs to date, with a Saturday night prime time audience to pile on some extra pressure, not that she has anything to be nervous about, Amfo is a veteran in the broadcasting game. Starting her career as an intern in the marketing department of KISS FM, the Londoner worked her way up the ranks to presenter, moving to Radio 1Xtra in 2013 and then to BBC Radio 1 in 2015 where she has worked on the Official Chart, the Live Lounge, and Future Sounds, all while fronting her own This City podcast. Her talents stretch well beyond radio and she’s become a regular face on our TV screens, from hosting Top Of The Pops and The Earthshot Prize to live updates from the country’s biggest festivals including Glastonbury. She’s the ultimate celebrity schmoozer, having worked over 100 red carpets of film premieres and music, film and fashion awards, and has interviewed some of the most famous names on the planet including Kendrick Lamar, Elton John, and Billie Eilish – who personally requested Amfo for her LA special.
Earlier this month, Amfo was the pre-ceremony host for The BAFTAs and has done the same role for The Brit Awards in previous years, so if anything, this main Brits gig seems a little overdue. “I’ll be frank with you, I’m one for believing anything’s possible, but I’m also very aware of the society that we live in and the intersections of my identity, and even though I was sure I was capable, I wasn’t really sure that I would get the chance to do it,” explains Amfo, who is of Ghanaian heritage. “That’s why this year I’m just like ‘Yes! This is it.’ I’m just charging with joy and I just want to have a laugh and do a good job.”
Representation is something that’s key for Amfo. “It is so, so, so important but for the longest time when people would say I was a role model I would be a bit unsure because there’s a certain pressure with that. I’m not a perfect human being in any way, shape or form, nobody is.” But as time has passed, Amfo has embraced the position. “When Black girls and women come up to me and are like: ‘I just want to say, big up, we see you, you’re repping us’ I genuinely could cry, it makes me feel like what I’m doing is worthwhile, especially as colourism is still so real – be it within my community or within the industry, I think it’s prevalent in so many insidious ways that we actually don’t even notice.” Amfo did her own research of previous Brits hosts and realised “I’ve never seen a dark-skinned Black woman who looks like me do this show. Oh my days. This is actually quite mad to be the first.”
Amfo, who announced last December that she will be leaving Radio 1, has more than put the hours in to get to where she is in her career, but she explains that there’s always those haters who’ll talk her success down, some even claiming it’s a result of media bosses adhering to diversity quotas. “When I’ve done the big prime time things like main stage hosting at Glastonbury, when I did Strictly [Come Dancing] and then when the Brits role was announced, there’s always some arsey guy who is like ‘oh, here we go, typical box ticking’. And I just laugh now, as I know that my receipts are valid.”
Amfo is confident, and any inklings of imposter syndrome or worrying about the naysayers seems to be under control, but she’s honest in admitting that it’s taken some work to get there. “I think last year I really had to learn about leaning into my power. I think sometimes you’d be the most competent person ever, but I could feel the weird eye from other people, so sometimes, subconsciously, you can downplay yourself but I had to stop feeling guilty for other people’s reactions, I had to really, really train myself and really teach myself that,” she explains before giving an example of something that happened three or four years ago when she was promoting one of her projects. “Someone from a magazine said to my team ‘we don’t quite think Clara is cover girl ready yet’, and I remember looking at all the people they’d had on their covers 12 months prior to me and I was seeing a common denominator and also a disparity when I compared my CV with some of the women they had chosen, and it hurt,” says Amfo who has since graced the covers of some of the UK’s biggest selling women’s magazines including British Vogue. “I wondered if I looked like that person (they had chosen) if things would be different. I think women of colour are very aware that you’ve got to work twice as hard to sometimes get half the respect, and that definitely knocked my confidence, going back to what I said before, I’ve never questioned my capability, but it’s always about ‘will I be given the chance?’”
The broadcaster who has also worked as a guest judge on both The Voice UK and RuPaul’s Drag Race UK and presented The One Show and Comic Relief Red Nose Day, got used to parking those feeling of hurt and pressing on with job after job, but they came to a head after an exhausting stretch of commitments that resulted in something close to burn out and forced the presenter to take time off last summer to reflect. “I think so much of my career has been about blazing my own trail and I think so much of my year last year was learning to be proud of that, and really having to dig deep and lean in, and be like ‘Clara, this is who you are’ and walk tall,” she reveals. “I guess my biggest struggle is loving myself unapologetically despite what society wants and whether they think you are ‘cover girl’ ready which, thank you HUNGER, I definitely am!”
And Amfo, who describes her style as veering somewhere between “a teenage boy and a grown woman”, is right at home on the HUNGER cover shoot, and has become somewhat of a fashion icon alongside her broadcasting accolades. “I love a bodycon moment and I love corsetry, shout out to Vivienne Westwood, but then I like Black British designers, I love Priya Ahluwalia,” says the star. Although her mother definitely has something to say about the short skirts and plunging necklines, Amfo laughs that off by posting her mother’s hilarious fashion feedback straight to Instagram. “I like to mix high fashion with streetwear and iconic, classic brands like Levi’s, because I think that just represents my personality. Oh and I love a vintage t-shirt, I had to battle someone online for my favourite Prince one, I definitely ended up paying three figures for it.”
Amfo, who will co-host the Brit Awards ceremony alongside Maya Jama and Roman Kemp, isn’t revealing what she’ll be wearing on the night but she makes no secret of the fact she has friends amongst the nominees — is she allowed to have favourites? “I mean, nobody said I can’t,” she laughs. “I’ve been so lucky that throughout my career, I’ve known a lot of nominees from when they were starting, so we’ve sort of grown up together. I’ve got a soft spot for certain artists like [Little] Simz, Dua [Lipa] and Raye. I think I did some of their first radio interviews and have seen their progression. I’m rooting for them, I mean I’m rooting for everybody, but I hope those three walk away with something.”
And Amfo has always been a champion of emerging talent, be they in the music, film or even sports industries, and she has a pretty frank message for those who have dreams of entering a career in broadcasting. “I will tell the absolute truth, nepotism is real. I’m not going to pretend because that would just be a lie and it can be wildly unfair sometimes, and there’s disparity when you look at who’s got a particular senior job in media and broadcast, and then you learn what school they went to or who they knew, and it’s frustrating, but I will say: please don’t give up!”
Amfo goes on to give some solid advice. “Start making your own stuff, grow your own audience, all you really need is your phone and decent ring light. My favourite content to watch at the moment is those street interviews on Tik Tok. I absolutely love them. It literally costs nothing and you get a great snapshot of the human spirit, whether it’s about politics, fashions or film. It’s probably the most authentic broadcast you can get in my opinion right now, and it’s purely DIY. And finally, don’t be afraid of hard work!”
This broadcaster certainly knows all about hard work, Amfo started out by peeling stickers off walls in nightclubs and doing Vox Pops outside Topshop on Oxford Street in London but she’s about to step onto one of her biggest stages yet at the Brits – hers is the happy success story that she wants for so many who will come after her.
The Brits Awards 2024 will be aired live from the O2 Arena on ITV1 and ITVX this Saturday 2nd March.
