The City of Vancouver is making more funding available to support new and emerging artists and industry professionals who experience systemic barriers to funding.
Worth $300,000, the city-funded initiative Music Fund is distributed by Creative BC and is intended to provide direct support to Indigenous and underrepresented musicians, artists, and groups in Vancouver’s music sector. Available on March 3, this will be the second round of grants provided by the fund. The first round was for the same amount and was awarded to 67 projects and artists.
“The Vancouver Music Fund was hope for my team and I as we dreamt of ways of honoring our song Yes Mama,” wrote Missy D, a previous Music Fund grant recipient in a release. “It allowed us to dream, innovate and most of all collaborate. The pandemic impacted our initial plans but with this fund available we were rooted in our purpose. It allowed us to give back to our community by including members as features and talents and hiring them as the production team.”
Money from the fund is divided into three separate streams. The first is a demo program where artists are funded to create recordings receive mentoring and skill development with a B.C. producer. The next stream is a music video program to help artists create a music video for their music and build audiences. Lastly, there’s the industry-catalyst program, designed to develop Vancouver’s music ecosystem and build the capacity of underrepresented groups.
Hussein Alidina, aka DJ A-SLAM, also received funding from the first round which he used to produce Lady Sinncere’s Can’t Kill Me.
"It's great to see the City of Vancouver funding music that has been chronically underfunded across Canada, in this case, a Hip-Hop song performed by an Indigenous-female artist,” Alidina said. “The funding allowed us to create a powerful anthem about Indigenous resistance, cultural resilience, and survival.”
The deadline for applications for all three programs is April 28. For more information on how to apply, visit CreativeBC’s website. CreativeBC has compiled a playlist of several songs and music videos that were made possible by the fund.
