When David Bowie won his five posthumous Grammy awards several weeks back, his son Duncan Jones wasn’t there to accept them, but he did respond with a heartfelt tribute online. Now, with his dad having won ‘Best British Artist’ and ‘Best Album’ for his final work Blackstar, Duncan was there to accept the former in person – and deliver a perfectly-appropriate speech.

He took the opportunity to point out what he believed to be Bowie’s most important quality, his support for the people who feel weird, strange or different – “the kooks”, as Duncan puts it.

“I lost my dad last year but I also became a dad,” he began. “I was spending a lot of time, after getting over the shock, trying to work out what I would want my son to know about his grandad.

“It would be the thing that most of his fans have taken over the last 50 years. He’s always been there supporting people who think they are a little bit weird or a little bit strange, a little bit different. He’s always been there for them.

“This award is for all the kooks, and all the people that make the kooks,” he ended.

The award was the final one presented on the night, handed over by a respectfully-subdued Noel Gallagher, while Bowie’s earlier win in the ‘Best British Male Solo Artist’ category was accepted by actor Michael C Hall, who plays Bowie in the Lazarus stage play.

“If David Bowie could be here tonight, he probably wouldn’t be here tonight,” Hall believed. “But since he can’t be here tonight, I’m here on his behalf and on behalf of his family to accept this testament to a man beholden to nothing but his own boundless imagination and daring; whose ever-expanding artistic vitality simultaneously soothes us and astonishes us.

“Maybe he is here tonight?” he asked. “I don’t know.”

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