The Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame (CSHF) is pleased to announce the finalists of the 2022 Slaight Music Emerging Songwriter Award. Established in 2017, the Award celebrates the current achievements and bright futures of Canadian songwriters on an upward trajectory in their career. This year’s finalists are comprised of five Anglophone artists and six Francophone artists from across Canada, who will be vying for a cash prize and exclusive opportunities to SOCAN songwriting camps, mentorship opportunities and recognition at the 2022 Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame Gala.
The Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame is inviting the public to discover new music and VOTE for their favourite songwriter as the second round of voting gets underway by a juried panel. Fans can vote daily at cshf.ca/songwriter-award/ until August 14 at 11:59 p.m. ET, to earn their nominee a bonus entry. The winner in the Anglophone and Francophone categories will be announced in the coming weeks.
Past winners of the Slaight Music Emerging Songwriter Award include Charlotte Cardin, Jessie Reyez, Lowell, Les Louanges, Mustafa and Ariane Roy.
This year’s Slaight Music Emerging Songwriter contest consisted of 30 outstanding candidates. The top finalists were determined after a first round of voting by a juried panel of music industry professionals.
The 2022 finalists in the Anglophone category are:
Nate Ferraro: Nate Ferraro is a Multi-Platinum songwriter based in Toronto. Starting his career off as an artist signed by Jimmy Iovine to Interscope Records, he made records with Lady Gaga and Carly Rae Jepsen, Nate was drawn to the craft of songwriting and soon found his place in the Toronto and LA writing scene. Nate’s background has rendered him an instant favorite with artists, writers, and producers alike. Recent cuts include Charli XCX, Blu deTiger, Bulow, and more. Through this, Nate has won 6 SOCAN Awards for Canadian Radio Airplay and has co-written songs that have generated more than 400 Million Plays on Spotify.
Eli Brown: Eli Brown is a LA based platinum Canadian songwriter and record producer from Brampton, Ontario. He is best known for his work on Drake’s “In The Bible” with Lil Durk & Giveon, and Chris Brown & Young Thug’s “Big Slimes” feat. Gunna and Lil Duke. Inspired by sounds of the analog era, he caught the attention of big producers early with his unique sound design. This led him to create Loophole Sounds, an innovative music tech company that creates tools now used and loved by many industry creatives. Shifting his focus to executive production and artist development, he is co-developing emerging artist Rhyan Douglas alongside Wondagurl and bringing his sound into the pop scene.
LOONY: LOONY often summons musical shades of gospel, jazz, hip hop, and R&B in her work. Sometimes recalling early Erykah Badu, The Roots and peak-era D’Angelo in both their enigmatic funkiness and Huszar’s poignant mastery of vocal inflection. In that way, LOONY feels both of the present and inherently classic — a culmination of a journey Huszar began in high school, when she would skip her musical theatre classes to make mixtapes in her basement. soft thing has earned LOONY ‘next up’ status, over 50M streams, the attention of Elton John, a Polaris Prize Longlist, headline tours in the US and Europe and a sold-out hometown show at the Danforth Music Hall in Toronto.
TOBi: TOBi is a JUNO winning rapper and singer, born in Nigeria, moving to Canada as a child. He quickly found an outlet in writing and performing music. To date TOBi has received critical acclaim from the likes of Billboard, Rolling Stone, i-D, COLORS, and PAPER. His project, ELEMENTS Vol. 1 was shortlisted for the Polaris Music Prize, and won the JUNO for Rap Recording of the Year in 2021.The JUNO love continued in 2022 with a nomination for Songwriter Of The Year. On top of recording and performing, TOBi is a co-founder of UNPACK Community, a series of discussions on mental wellness in creative fields. His new album is set to start rolling out in 2022.
Haviah Mighty: Haviah Mighty didn’t need to change her birth name when she decided to dedicate her career to music. 2019 saw Haviah earn break-out success with her album, 13th Floor, making her the first hip-hop artist and first Black woman to win the Polaris Music Prize, celebrating “Best Canadian Album of the Year”. With her JUNO Award-winning mixtape, Stock Exchange (Nov. 2021), Haviah made history once again as the first woman to ever win within the Rap Album of the Year category Unyielding and irresistible, Haviah Mighty will be heard.
In the Francophone category for the Slaight Music Emerging Songwriter Award, finalists are Robert Robert, Lou-Adriane Cassidy, P’tit Belliveau, Lydia Képinski, LUMIÈRE and Étienne Coppée.
For complete bios, music streaming, voting, and to learn more about the Slaight Music Emerging Songwriter Award, go to cshf.ca/songwriter-award/
