Professional Development

DM Collective is Drake Music’s Artist Development programme. It aims to change the landscape for Disabled musicians, making a career as a musician more accessible and sustainable.

What is DM Collective?

DM Collective support Disabled musicians to develop their work and careers, so that they can play a major part in the wider landscape of the arts and culture. We do this through commissions, residencies, bursaries, mentoring, and training for musicians at different stages of their career.

We will be working closely with Disabled musicians to:

Understand the barriers to developing a sustainable creative career faced by Disabled musicians.
Provide mentorship opportunities for Disabled musicians at the start of their creative careers.
Create structures to provide ongoing support to Disabled musicians in developing and progressing their creative careers.

DM Collective is made possible through funding from Arts Council England, PRS Foundation, Garrick Charitable Trust, Oleg Prokofiev Trust, and Cockayne Foundation.

Who is it for?

We’re currently supporting the professional development of early-career Disabled musicians in England through our Emergents 2025–26 programme. Now in its third round, the programme will support five artists with a £1,000 creative bursary, along with stipends for participating in online creative sessions and networking events. The initiative is part of the Drake Music Collective and aims to foster new talent through collaboration, visibility, and accessible support.

We are prioritising applications from underrepresented groups within the Disabled community, including those who are gender-diverse, LGBTQIA+, or from the Global Majority. Selected artists will have the opportunity to showcase their work at a hybrid industry event in 2026. We will announce our new Emergent Artists in Autumn 2025.

Definitions

Musician: Any performer, recording artist, or DJ who creates original music as part of their practice. This includes all ways of making music and all genres.

Emergent: Someone who is at the beginning of their career in music. This includes:

Someone who has made music for a long time, but doesn’t have a lot of experience of making music professionally;

A musician whose previous musical practice is now inaccessible to them, so they are developing a new approach or playing a different instrument.

Disabled: We use ‘Disabled Person’ as an inclusive umbrella term to include all people who identify and experience disabling barriers based on The Social Model of Disability. We also include people who may not use this terminology but who do experience disability discrimination under the Equalities Act 2010.