The 'Bubblers' of 2015
Beginning in April this year and based out of two focus cities, Nottingham and Salford, Future Bubblers is a three-year talent discovery, mentoring and development project conceived by BBC 6 Music DJ, Gilles Peterson’s Brownswood Music company. An ambitious nationwide search, funded by Arts Council England, the project aims to break down the barriers for emerging musicians from cities across England and encourage artists making innovative and left-field music.
Shortlisted from almost 300 applications the selected candidates – the ‘Bubblers’ - will now receive a year of professional and creative support via a bespoke mentoring programme, giving them music industry insights, tools and the self-confidence towards achieving their individual artistic ambitions.
Helping the Bubblers to unlock industry doors and helping them to develop skills and flourish locally, a panel of esteemed music industry execs. and seasoned artists have been signed up to act as their personal mentors.
The four Nottingham confirmed Bubblers and their mentor pairings are:
Congi
A production duo representing the bassier end with a distinct ‘UK’ vibe that draws on jazz, soul, hip hop and grime influences.
Mentor: Swindle aka Cameron Palmer (Artist)
Snowy
An incredibly talented Grime wordsmith.
Mentor: Sway (MC and music business exec.)
Yazmin Lacey
A beautifully gifted singer songwriter out of Nottingham
Mentor: Victoria Port (artist, 'Anushka')
Three Body Trio
Free jazz meets electro from this brave musical trio out of Nottingham
Mentor: Simon Goffe (Managing Director of Brownswood Music)
The remaining five acts that have also been selected are: Thru Colours (London); Medikul (Loughborough); Kid Katharsis aka Abdus (Manchester); Revenu (Hull); Munro (London)
How it works
To support Brownswood Music with its mission, Help Musicians UK is offering a £10k bursary fund, which will be divided among the Bubblers and invested in developing their careers. The Bubblers will work with their mentor and the Brownswood team to put together a tailored proposal for financial support. The grants will enable the artists to take forward their creative work and build their profile, for example by covering specific promotional costs, studio time or collaborations with live musicians.
Tim Foxon, Talent Programme Manager at Help Musicians UK said “We’re excited about the emerging artists that Brownswood have uncovered through their nationwide search and pleased that we can help the Bubblers go the extra mile with these special bursaries.”
To fill the gaps in support that still exist in the music industry, despite the opportunities to connect provided by the internet, the Brownswood team worked tirelessly to connect in with local networks in each the focus cities; searching for talent through old school person-to-person networks, demo drop-off boxes in record stores; workshops in community centres; and even a series of free community street parties that Gilles Peterson himself made appearances at as a surprise headline DJ.
What is 'Future Bubblers'?
The Future Bubblers project was born out of the awareness that a specific ‘sound’ - that being the more leftfield, genreless, innovative world of music - was incredibly under-represented in the sector of music funding and industry education.
For the Future Bubblers team, the music industry felt quire narrow in terms of development opportunities. Focused instead on the ‘here and now’, making young music makers’ feel like they have to conform to market pressures and compromise a slow and natural musical growth and evolution.
“The music industry is a scary place, that is ever changing and it’s hard for a young music maker to understand their place within it, especially if they are making music slightly off-centre and if they are based away from London where it all seems to be going on.” Explained Amy Frenchum. “Future Bubblers is about creating a network of exciting and innovative music talent and giving them the contacts and opportunities to navigate their way naturally and in a real-life non-jargon way.”
Brownswood’s search will continue for a further two years, with Hull already confirmed as a focus city for year two. Applications to become a Future Bubbler will be reopening early 2016. Those interested should head to the Future Bubblers website - and sign up to the mailing list.
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