With an honour roll that includes Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever, G Flip and The Teskey Brothers, the 2021 recipients of the Levi's Music Prize are ASHWARYA, Beddy Rays, Birdz, Jerome Farah, JK-47, and Sycco.
Since being established in 2017, Levi's Music Prize has awarded almost $500,000 in prizes to emerging artists and bands to assist them taking their careers to the next level.Each budding stars in their own right, the Levi's Music Prize class of 2021 have an impressive list of accolades: 2021 Song Of The Year at Queensland Music Awards; 2020 triple j Unearthed Artist Of The Year; Best Independent Hip Hop Album at 2018 AIR Awards; finalist at National Indigenous Music Awards; and co-writing Baker Boy's mega hits 'Mr La Di Da Di' and 'Meditjin'.
The six winners this year each receive a $15,000 cash prize as well as an additional support package from The Indigo Project and Bolster.
Selected from the inaugural BIGSOUND50 (50 artists featured as the future of Australian music as part of BIGSOUND's 2020 online pivot), judges had a difficult task whittling the winners down to just six.
"The past 18 months have been a particularly trying time for new artists to breakthrough given the uncertain nature of touring throughout the pandemic," Levi's Music Prize judge and senior booking agent at Select Music, Casey O'Shaughnessy says.
"I'm a genuine fan of each of the winners and I look forward to watching them flourish over the years."
Despite the recent cancellation of BIGSOUND (due to current COVID restrictions), QMusic CEO Kris Stewart says an award like the Levi's Music Prize (which is administered by QMusic) is a major boost in the life of a struggling artist especially given the carnage the pandemic has wrought.
"Our musicians and the music industry at large continue to be one of the hardest hit sectors," he says, "having to prove their resilience time and time again in the face of cancellations and tougher restrictions than other industries.
"The Prize will go a long way to supporting these talented BIGSOUND artists to not only survive but thrive through COVID and beyond."
Each of the six winners is beyond excited to have their name added to the quality list of past recipients.
ASHWARYA: "I'm really appreciative of this especially considering how tricky it's been as an emerging artist this past year to earn a major source of income, so this will have an immense contribution towards my music career."
Birdz: "Winning the Levi's Music Prize means so much – especially given these current times we're living in and the impact COVID continues to have on the arts community."
Sycco: "I remember seeing G Flip and Hatchie win over the last few years and manifesting in those moments. Hopefully we can tour overseas next year, so the money will definitely assist with getting over there. This is so awesome, I cannot believe it!"
Beddy Rays: "Winning the Levi's Music Prize in these current times is such a huge help towards this dream [of recording our debut album] while we can't play many gigs to help fund the album. Now we can make this happen without a mi goreng diet that would shave a couple of years off our lives."
Jerome Farah: "To me it means all these late nights are worth it and all this hard work is not going unnoticed. It means I'm safe financially and I can focus on only music for some time with all the work myself and so many other musicians have lost."
JK-47: "It's definitely a big weight off our shoulders. COVID has cancelLed a lot of our shows recently, so it will give us a bit of breathing room with developing our next project."
