Award winning saxophonist and broadcaster YolanDa Brown teams up once again with entreprenuer and philanthropist James JP Drake, to launch the 2021 Drake YolanDa award: a music prize presented to emerging artists between ages 16-30.

Launched in 2019 and back this year after a covid hiatus, The Drake YolanDa Award will provide a platform for young artists to showcase their talent and assist them in taking their careers to the next level.

Ten promising artists will be awarded £3000 each, with ten additional runner up prizes of £500 each, intended to support each winners’ artistic development in areas including touring, artistic development, recording new music, music videos, marketing, branding and purchasing new equipment. Celebrating the rich and diverse nature of the UK music scene, The Drake YolanDa Award welcomes applicants from all genres and are specifically looking for independent artists that need support and do not currently have backingfrom major record labels or publishers.

YolanDa will recruit a team of leading music industry figures as judges and on 19th October, twenty shotisted artists will meet face to face and perform in front of this panel of experts.

The winners will be presented their awards at a celebration concert taking place on 6th November in London attended by music professionals and media. Previous winners of the Drake YolanDa award include rising luminaries such as contemporary soul artist Genevieve Dawson, gospel rapper and author Guvna B and the vocalist and songwriter Cherise Adams-Burnett.

Speaking about the prizes, YolanDa Brown says: We are incredibly excited to be launching the 2021 Drake YolanDa Award after the most challenging few months with the global pandemic, artists need support now more than ever. James and I strongly believe that money should not be an obstacle for pursuing your dreams and we want to provide a platform that will hopefully become the beginning for many success stories”.

In what has undoubtedly been a very challenging time for emerging artists who face an unprecedented level of challenges at the beginning of their careers, The Drake YolanDa Award aims to provide assistance to overcome these obstacles, with its ethos of nurturingyoung talent coming from a variety of different backgrounds.

Applications are open now until 15th October. Artists must apply and submit a recent music video or audio recording via https://www.drakeyolanda.org/