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?

In 2023 we are building on lessons learned from our previous programmes to improve and develop the format of DM Collective.

Miss Jacqui, a young black woman with glasses. She has spiral curls just reaching her shoulder, a very pale yellow top and a thoughtful and almost dreamy expression. — Previous Commissionee: Miss Jacqui

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.

The core of the project will be led by two Resident Artists, who will be on a placement with us for 7 months starting in summer 2023. As well as creating a piece of new music, each of the Resident Artists will focus on a specific area of work:

The Resident Artist/ Creative Facilitator will focus on mentoring early-career disabled musicians through a bursary programme.

The Resident Artist/ Access Champion will focus on understanding barriers disabled people face to a sustainable creative career and exploring possible solutions.

Who is it for?

The programme is open to musicians who identify as Disabled and live/work in the UK. Some travel to London and/or Manchester may be required, although we are happy to discuss reasonable adjustments if this is not accessible.

This applies to both the Resident Artist roles and the bursary programme for early-career artists.

Definitions

Disabled: We use ‘Disabled’ as an umbrella term to include d/Deaf, Disabled and Neurodivergent people, anyone who faces disabling barriers.

Musician: We use ‘Musician’ as a global term to cover any artists who create original music as part of their practice. This includes all ways of making music and all genres.

Commitment to diversity

We aim to make our programme intersectionally inclusive.

We are keen to work with more artists from the global majority. To do this we are actively reaching out to make new connections to try and achieve a balance of diversity within the programme.

We would also like to work with more women and LGBTQIA+ artists and are working to build new networks to achieve this.