Since Arctic Monkeys won the Mercury Prize in 2006 for their debut Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not, the award has gone to ever more obscure artists. The rise of file sharing and streaming services has seen mainstream British music undergo a managed declined as the ease with which people can access new stuff – without necessarily paying for it – has forced the major labels into more dependable territory.

This has led British music nerds to form a complex relationship with the Mercury Prize. Founded in 1992 as an alternative to the BPI’s commercially focused BRIT awards, it supposedly acknowledges those acts at the creative pinnacle of British music. However, the panel’s decisions have often come under scrutiny. Depending on who you ask, the nominees are either too white, too black, too old, too young, too popular or too anonymous. What is clear is that this year’s decision to reflect the mainstream has paid off, not least given that the winning album, Skepta’s Konnichiwa, is so universally popular.

Perhaps the most satisfying aspect of Skepta’s win is that his path was blocked by some genuinely stiff competition. No one would like to begrudge a band as original as Young Fathers their win, but the class of 2014 reads like a list of non-entities in comparison to this year’s. The fact that Radiohead were not seriously considered reflects this. The band’s ninth album A Moon Shaped Pool is their fifth to be nominated for the Mercury Prize. Of course, Radiohead need neither the money or the exposure that would come with a win at this stage in their career but it has to be said that five nominations is scant consolation for the band’s twenty years at the frontier of British music.

In the end, it came down to a three-way fight between Skepta, the highly regarded Anohni (a former winner under her previous incarnation of Antony and the Johnsons) for her album Hopelessness and David Bowie’s Blackstar. In my opinion, the former is the other deserving winner of this year’s prize. Hopelessness is not just remarkable for the transgender Anohni’s honest introspection but also because it serves as an eleven-track riposte to the notion that electronic music is unfeeling.

For reasons both obvious and understandable, most of the Mercury Prize post-mortems will focus on Blackstar. And although David Bowie’s final album provided a fitting end to the great man’s life and career, I can’t help but feel like the panel have made the correct decision. Although Blackstar is the final album from an artist who is notable for his lack of fidelity to any one genre, Konnichiwa is the defining album in a genre that arguably defined 2016.

Moreover, snubbing Skepta would represent a missed opportunity for the panel. The warm feeling that a posthumous award for Bowie would provide are far outweighed by the benefits in terms of exposure and legitimacy for Skepta and grime in general. Pragmatism aside, though Konnichiwa is a fantastic album precisely because it is has not compromised on grime’s DIY ethos. It is so much more than technically-assured awards bait and that is why it is a deserving winner. Indeed, the decision to give Konnichiwa the gong is wholly in-keeping with Bowie’s pioneering spirit.

However, it would be disingenuous to not acknowledge the fact that we have been here before. In 2003, Dizzee Rascal’s Boy in Da Corner swept all before it. This is not to say that Skepta’s win is somehow less deserved or less remarkable and of course, grime has evolved immensely in the last thirteen years. It is merely to say that Skepta stands on the shoulders of giants. Consequently, while Skepta’s victory will take the headlines, the fact that Kano was also nominated should not go unnoticed. Grime cannot remain relevant with just one household name, a fact that Skepta himself recognises declaring that “I hope the judges saw that if Konnichiwa wins then it is the birth of so many more things”.

Anecdotally, I often hear that people don’t really like grime but they understand its importance. And to be uncharitable to Skepta and his scene, this provides some insight into how such an unashamedly black genre could find such success in an industry dominated by a duopoly of predominantly white label and radio execs. It’s not the music particularly that is important but the cultures and people it represents. Like it or not, there is limited space in British music’s shop window and Skepta’s recognition by the establishment in the form of this award is certainly a positive step.

Just as Arctic Monkeys’ debut fused kitchen sink social realism with a classless popular appeal, Konnichiwa is an album that documents black Britain in a truly colourblind manner. As a result, Skepta is not just a popular winner but a truly significant one.