FUTURE SOUND OF NOTTINGHAM 24

Our six Industry Professionals listened to all seven Future Sound of Nottingham 2024 finalists.

Scoring them each on the mentioned key factors below.

And coming out top, as the Champ of FSN 2024 was…

KAP!

KAP will open the Rock City main stage at Dot to Dot Festival on Sunday 26th May 2024.

Big ups KAP. Big ups all the Finalists. Big ups our Industry Pros.

And big up DHP / Dot to Dot / Rock City for helping make this happen.

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• Arlo Kit
• Kelsey and the Embers
• Georgian
• Noemi Jazzmine
• KAP
• Fox Evades
• Wilf Spiv

All seven Fimalists will be listened to by a bunch of National and Local music Industry Professionals who will score all artists on a variety of factors to decide which one artists will open the Rock City Main Stage at Dot to Dot Festival in May.

WHY DO AN INDUSTRY PROFESSIONALS PANEL?

Well, we try our best to keep things fair! Putting the seven finalists in front of well connected, Industry Professionals, whom they will all receive constructive feedback from means that regardless of who becomes the champ, they all both have the chance to learn what different significant music humans think of their music + potentially it might start a butterfly effect just as exciting as becoming Champ.

Several previous FSN Finalists have secured management, been booked for Splendour independently, as well as received key gig support slots. And that’s when we’ve had a mostly local panel – this year – thanks to the ‘online-only’ D2D special edition model, we have secured multiple huge National names who also listen in depth to all the Finalists.

WHO ARE THE NATIONAL INDUSTRY PROFESSIONALS?

• Jess Iszatt – Host of BBC Introducing on BBC Radio 1
• Jasmine Takhar – Host of BBC Introducing on BBC Asian Network
• Jodie Bryant – Host of Discover Live

WHO ARE THE LOCAL INDUSTRY PROFESSIONALS?

• Anton Lockwood – DHP Family / Dot to Dot Festival
• Craig Chettle – Confetti / Notts TV
• Jackie P – Kemet FM

WHAT ARE THE FINALISTS SCORED ON?

• Quality of the song, specifically from a song-writing perspective, as their ears perceive it. Is the attention of their ears being caught by the melody, the bass and or the clever lyric? Is their foot tapping, their bum wiggling, is their heart being moved by the story of the song?
• Quality of the performance / recording, as thrit ears perceive it, from an imaging the song performed live perspective.
• Suitability to play Dot to Dot, one of the UK’s leading New Music Festivals, as their ears perceive it.

WHAT ABOUT IF THERE’S A TIE?

If in doubt Chair of Judges Jackie P and Nusic Founder Mark Del will make final judgement call, where clarity is lacking due to no precise rule currently relating to the precise matter arising, decision will be made in the context of this question, “does this align with the spirit of FSN?”

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ONLY GOT 2 MINS? WE GET IT. HERE ARE THE HEADLINES ON HOW TO ENTER. ⌚️

– Pick your strongest, most appropriate, original track. 🔥

– Email it to us at hello@nusic.org.uk w the subject line ‘FSN 24 ENTRY’. 📧

– You MUST confirm your ‘Nottingham-ness’. 🆖

– You MUST confirm that you are available to play live on Sunday 26th May (Dot to Dot). 🎤

As Nusic is all about raw talent, we accept phone / DIY recordings if you do not have studio recordings yet. But if you do have a studio recording, send us those.

⏰ You MUST enter by 1159pm Monday 1st April. ⏰

ALL successfully received entries are listed here (updated every 24 hours).

ONLY GOT 2 MINS? WE GET IT. HERE ARE THE HEADLINES ON HOW TO ENTER. ⌚️

– Pick your strongest, most appropriate, original track. 🔥

– Email it to us at hello@nusic.org.uk w the subject line ‘FSN 24 ENTRY’. 📧

– You MUST confirm your ‘Nottingham-ness’. 🆖

– You MUST confirm that you are available to play live on Sunday 26th May (Dot to Dot). 🎤

As Nusic is all about raw talent, we accept phone / DIY recordings if you do not have studio recordings yet. But if you do have a studio recording, send us those.

⏰ You MUST enter by 1159pm Monday 1st April. ⏰

ALL successfully received entries are listed here (updated every 24 hours).

WANT TO KNOW MORE? HERE WE GOOOO… 🥳

WTF ARE YOU GUYS DOING THIS YEAR? – Great question you wise human being you. Obvs we were totally gutted when the news broke that Splendour was sadly not happening this year – and we did have to sit down and question whether it was worth the time and energy from our (mostly) volunteers to try and make FSN happen without the usual inspiring juicy carrot of a Splendour main stage slot. After weeks of deliberating, idea pondering, and chatting w the ridiculously supportive DHP fam, we together came up with a plan B.

Hopefully you agree, at the start of your career, the chance to have your music listened to by a bunch of Industry Professionals who can help you (if their ears like you!) is a great opportunity that can (as it has in previous FSNs) lead to butterfly effects left, right and splendour. Plus, DHP very kindly agreed to give the FSN 2024 Champ the opening slot on the main stage of Dot to Dot Festival – in Rock City main hall. So we’ve swapped Nottigham’s biggest festival for Nottingham’s coolest festival.

Obvs, it would be a bit weird to have a final in the same room that the prize is in (plus we have two less months run up) so we’ve decided to run the whole ‘FSN process’ online this year. The one brucey bonus that gives us, is we are trying our best to get some big National names in to be Industry Professionals this year, meaning that whilst ‘only’ one artist gets to play Rock City, all six finalists will get their music listened to AND get written up feedback, from a bunch of local AND National music industry professionals.

By entering FSN 2024, you agree that should you make it to that online Final, you are open and accepting of positive, and constructive feedback.

SO WTF ARE THE RULES NUSIC? 🤔

Glad you asked…

YOU MUST BE FROM OR LIVING IN THE GREATER NOTTINGHAM URBAN AREA – Get your Google on if you don’t know what that is.

ALL-INCLUSIVE – To encourage all musical genres and musical combinations to seize this opportunity, we have a few rules that aspire to encourage a diversity of participants in FSN that reflects both the incredible musical diversity across Nottinghamshire as well as our own founding principle about supporting all genres. FSN is not just about bands, as awesome as the bands of Notts are. So:

• We have a rule to make FSN accessible to electronic artists, rappers (in other words, musicians who often perform purely with pre-recorded backing).
• We have a rule to ensure artists performing Hip-Hop, Grime, Soul, Reggae, World, (any form of) Electronic Music plus any genre related to these six musical families, from whom we classically have less entries (proportionally), are encouraged to seize this opportunity.

Details on these rules below.

MUSICAL DIVERSITY

• At least one of the Six Finalists will be an artist who performs Hip-Hop, Grime, Soul, Reggae, World, (any form of) Electronic Music plus any genre related to these six musical families. The frame of reference for this is ‘Would this song be played on Kemet FM and/or BBC 1Xtra?’. This rule is not perfect, but it comes from a good place, aspiring to make sure FSN is open to all genres.

RAW TALENT 

• These rules try to ensure raw talent is recognised, and to ensure that FSN does not end up featuring purely artists who have already had the opportunity of playing either Splendour or the FSN Final.
• No more than two artists who have played Splendour (in previous years) can make it through to the Final. This means that should the Final Six have three artists that have played Splendour before, the third would be replaced by the next artist that has not played Splendour previously.
• No more than two artists who have already played the Rock City FSN Final can make it through to the 2024 online Final.
• And one new rule for 2024 – if your act has played the Rock City Main Room for Dot to Dot before you can’t enter. 

WHO CANNOT ENTER? 

• Group One – Those who have won / headlined any previous NUSIC ‘musician helping event’. For the avoidance of doubt this means K.JI, EM, ALT BLK ERA, BETSEY, REMY, THE DANDYLIONS, BROTHERHOOD, SUPER FURNITURE, SUSPECT ALIBI, JOY MUMFORD, THE GORGEOUS CHANS, THE AFTERDARK MOVEMENT, KAPPA GAMMA, KAGOULE, THE MONEY, LONG DEAD SIGNAL, DOG IS DEAD, FRONTIERS and THE TURF. Previous runners-up and Finalists CAN enter.
• Group Two – Any Nottingham artist ALREADY announced on the Rock City or Rescue Rooms main stages at Dot to Dot 2024.
• Group Three – Musicians who are unable to perform at least three original tracks live in the final. To clarify the minimum requirement for playing live is a live vocal, singing over a backing track, Ableton etc.
• Group Four – Artists who only play covers, no covers are allowed to be entered or performed – we are all about encouraging original song writing.

Grey Area/s – What if you are a new artist that includes members who used to be in one of the artists listed in ‘Group One’? This is where it gets reeaaalllll complicated. It wouldn’t be fair to have pretty much the same artist get to play that main stage again would it? But also it wouldn’t be fair for a band of six to be excluded because one of them played triangle as a session musician back in 2016. So. If your new artist contains the same humans as before, you cannot enter. If your new artist has two or more members of an artist listed in ‘Group One’ it must be at least four years since your old act got through. If you are the only member of a ‘Group One’ artist, in your new artist, and there are at least three of you in total, you may enter now. Unless you are the lead singer / front person, in which case again it must be four years since your ‘Group One’ artist made it. Sorry singers, but you are the key distinguisher of any artist. Sometimes there are downsides to being the star, but hey, you get all the groupies.

The FSN nerds amongst you will notice that there is not a ‘solo artists’ rule this year. But that’s cos there’s no public vote, meaning no disadvantage to being a solo artist.

2024 FSN Transparency Declarations (This will be updated weekly) =

• No artists have yet entered this year, that are related, living with or in love with current members of the Nusic Team.

CLARIFY YOUR DEFINITION/S OF ‘NOTTINGHAMNESS’ PLEASE?

• Check FAQ11 in our #NusicFAQs: nusic.org.uk/faq

By entering #FSN2024 you agree to accept all the above and emit nothing but positivity, love and unicorns

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PS – If you made to the end – big up. Here’s a puppy. And a unicorn. x