Emerging Artist Award

Genre: Alt-Pop

“My artistic vision is to continue to experiment and explore my intuition around my work, visually and sonically. Release not only music but multi-media experiences around the music…The goal is to always collaborate with people that really love music and don’t mind pushing boundaries and telling their truth.”

Genre: Alternative/Indie-Pop

“It is our dream to be full time musicians. We want the chance to be able to create music every day without the difficulty of working another job. The ultimate goal for the next year or so would be to go on tour and write and produce as much as we can. We will use the funding to create the strongest musical project and visuals we possibly can.”

Genre: Pop

“As an artist, my vision is to make music that not only makes the listener feel good and gives them something to relate to but to create a platform for myself that allows members of the LGBTQ+ community to have someone like them that they can look up to. The message I share through my music is freedom of expression.”

Genre: Alternative

“My music is informed by a place of love and loss. I hope to evoke that emotion from my audience and really encourage them to lean in and feel along with me. My goal is to increase visibility so that one day no one has that feeling of having missed out on life or play catch-up. And how lucky am I that I get to do so by song?”

Genre: Pop/Alternative

“I want to be what I didn’t have growing up to generations to come…I want to be a part of the movement to break that wall down entirely and open the floodgates for fluidity. I write to inspire queer kids/adults like me.”

Genre: R&B

“My purpose in creating, releasing, and performing my art is to share my raw thoughts and experiences as a queer Filipina and to contemplate, out loud, what it means to live a life of character, respect, forgiveness, courage, love, and joy. My goal is to build a community of like-minded people who resonate with my art. And through shared values, encourage each other to be bold enough to be the best selves that we can be in each moment— to self-actualize with grace.”

Genre: Electronic/Dance

“My main inspiration is to represent, propagate and perpetuate my Brazilian ancestors’ expression and art and share to the world. I am a queer activist, as independent as an artist can be, I want to inspire others to be their true self free from judgments.”

Genre: Rock

“My vision is to create harmonically rich music paired with vulnerable, honest lyrics. I believe that the personal is political, and that sharing my innermost thoughts, fears, aspirations, and dreams is the essence of emotionally moving art. I seek to inspire deeper thought, remind those feeling emotionally stifled that they are not alone, and provide aural beauty along the way.”

Genre: Alternative R&B

“My artistic vision is an all-encompassing view of my artistry and all those around me. It is vital for me to exist as someone I didn’t get to see growing up, someone embracing all my intersections…I hope that my music will inspire listeners to be honest, raw, and vulnerable with their own creations, that their stories are worth telling, and that we are all creators. People like me deserve a seat at the table and are ready to be seen.”

Genre: Electronic

“Music for me has always involved breaking down boundaries, borders, and binaries. I don’t ascribe to genre, and draw threads where different influences, communities, and aesthetic worlds can touch…Music is a space of expansion and redefinition, where people can access their deepest core selves, destroy, and rebuild anew.”

Genre: Neo/Soul

“My artistic vision is to create music that changes the way people think. Music that people can connect and feel something from. I want human beings to feel less alone while listening. In a world that can be so dark, I want to sing out the light I feel inside me.”

Genre: Electro-Pop

“For me, music is the purest form of mental health advocacy. During the times when I felt so desperately alone, I could put in my headphones and remember that someone out there knew exactly how I was feeling. Musicians are leaders. They are brave enough to walk on the path less traveled. I want to follow in their footsteps and create new trails of my own.”

Genre: Pop

“I strive to write songs that are both complex and straightforward. I am inspired by the nuance of the world around me and the experiences I go through, using songwriting to access a deeper vulnerability, and hopefully motivating others to do so as well.”

Genre: R&B

“My overall message as an artist is to not allow anyone to put limits on our creativity or box us into one title…I resonate with dreamers. I am inspired by people who relentlessly go after their dreams despite what others may say. It is how I try to live my life, and it’s what I want to inspire others to do as well. Break the mold and follow your own path, not just the one everyone says you’re supposed to be on.”

Genre: Chamber-Folk

“While creating music, I aim to make sense of my internal and external worlds while exploring our interconnectedness. I use composition, writing, experiential performance and filmmaking to find balance between darkness and light; sound and silence while striving towards healing and wholeness.”