The Original Track Award (Solo) sponsored by Levi’s®
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For a track written and recorded by a solo artist.
WINNER
Ni Maxine
Liverpool Lighthouse, North West
Ni Maxine was inspired to write "Strange Love" after having been deeply impacted by the TV series ‘I May Destroy You’, written by and starring Michaela Coel. Within the song, Ni itemises and explores the different types of love that we often encounter and weaves that multiplicitous journey into the finding of true love that is often right in front of us. The recognition of true love can often start and end with us genuinely loving ourselves and understanding our true worth; only then can we open the door to real love from external sources.
Ni draws on a combination of lived / witnessed experience and imagination. The lyrics are tightly married with the music which ruminates in a 6/8, bass-heavy jazzy dream-space before a bossa nova awakening, acknowledging love that's "right beneath your noses, away from validation-seeking."
Boodz - Inside Step (feat. TL)
Rap Club Productions C.I.C, London
Boodz (real name Tyrelle) says, “This was my first ever release, which features my twin brother. My first verse bars were written for The Spit Game Season 4 Episode 2 cypher. The bars went viral on TikTok and people wanted a full track. When I was working on that, my twin brother TL’s bars also went viral so we decided he should feature. 'Inside Step' became the first of a three-track series I made which is about my experiences with girls. The beat is inspired by 90s hip-hop, but flows I use in the bars bring that era of rap with more modern vibes.”
Joe Winter - Laughing For The West
Youth Music NextGen Fund, London
Joe says, “'Laughing for the West' is a lament on the experience of being a citizen of ‘the west’, as well as an individual navigating their own emotional landscape. It’s about complicity. You’re laughing for it — because you work for it, you benefit from being its citizen; it pays you. But it hurts you too; it overwhelms you.
“And above all of this, you’re a person living on a planet with which ancient parts of you long to reconnect. But you feel so distant from it, and you live as if it were something else that keeps you alive.
“These outside forces seep into your identity, affecting the ways by which you love and can be loved. But you’re so intimately tied up with it that you don’t know what you’d do without it. 'When you shake me it hurts my brain, but when you leave me I waste away.'”
Yv Shells - LOSS
Youth Music NextGen Fund, London
Yv Shells says, “'LOSS' deals with the destructive nature of addiction to another person or a substance. Romantic riffs and punchy drums portray how the mind can be fooled into staying in a bad situation. It's about the push and pull of abuse.
“For me it is a reflection on an addictive relationship and looking at how you can lose yourself in these situations. It's a song about trying to separate the bad from the good and the paradoxical nature of wanting to stay in a bad situation.
“I used a combination of real guitar and bass and then played the rest of the instruments electronically to create a neo-soul and post-punk influenced sound. I recorded, produced and mixed the song myself.”