MERCURY PRIZE: PLACE YOUR BETS

Betting odds are on Fiction’s Kate Tempest (pictured), Young Turks’ Sampha or #Merky’s Stormzy to walk away with the Hyundai Mercury Prize in London tonight. J Hus (Black Butter), Dinosaur (Edition Records) and The Big Moon (Fiction) have enjoyed the highest sales surges since the 12 shortlisted albums were announced. Who's your money on?

Spoken-word artist Tempest, who is the current favourite to win, is nominated for her second album, Let Them Eat Chaos. Sampha is there for his debut, Process, as is Stormzy for Gang Signs & Prayer.

The second album from indie rock band Glass Animals, How to Be a Human Being (Wolf Tone), has the fourth best odds, followed by the first album from Sony-signed hip-hop solo artist J Hus, Common Sense (Black Butter), and young hip-hop act Loyle Carner for Yesterday’s Gone (Virgin EMI).

Since the shortlist was revealed six weeks ago, J Hus has sold an extra 18k copies of Common Sense to hit 82k—a sales surge of 29%, according to Music Week. Sales of the debut from four-piece band The Big Moon, Love in the 4th Dimension, are up 30% to 4.5k copies to date, while Dinosaur’s Together, As One (Edition Records), is up 38% to 1.6k.

UMG U.K. labels Virgin EMI and Fiction and indie Young Turks have two entries each in the shortlist and Warner tallies two (including distributed act Stormzy). Sony has one mention as does BMG.