Meet our 2025-26 Emergent Artists

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We are very excited to introduce our selected 2025-26 Emergent Artists!

Just a little recap, our Emergent Artist programme is a part of the Drake Music Collective (DMC), a professional development programme for Deaf and/or Disabled musicians. The five selected artists have the opportunity to make new music and develop their creative skills with a bursary of £1000.

So let’s get to know more about our fantastic new artists…

Manukai 

 

A Black-Asian person in their early twenties with dark brown dreadlocks, a septum piercing and a black chocker with spikes. They are wearing a black veil, and are looking up at the camera.
Credits: Creative Direction by Thea Holmes, Photography and Editing by Sara Etasse, Studio is Indigo Dreams Studio

 

A Mancunian raised in the South West, Manukai (he/they) spent their formative years bi-laterally deaf. Growing up Blasian in a mining town, he faced stereotypes and unwanted attention and was variably received, his only constant; the seed to one day create and perform music.

Manukai intertwines multiple alternative styles including alt-pop and dark pop, truly never bound by confirmative constraints. Adorned with buds of llived experience, LGBTQ+, BIPOC – as well as other minority groups, Manukai’s creativity harvests influence from artists such as BLKALTERA, Ashnikko, Conan Gray, Jazmin Bean, Willow Smith, and Paloma Faith.

Manukai performing at The Eagle Inn

 

Find out more

Follow Manukai on Instagram
Subscribe to Manukai on YouTube

Ant Lightfoot

 

A vibrant colourful background, shows Ant on a stage, crouched forwards to reach a very short microphone. Ant is a white person with dark styled hair, a moustache, has lots of visible tattoos and is wearing a pale yellow short sleeved shirt with red patterns on. Ant is smiling.

Ant Lightfoot (he/they) is a neuroqueer artist based in Bristol, UK.

A polymath at heart; It’s difficult to narrow Ant down to one genre.

He tiptoes across forms, incorporating rhymes, comedy and philosophy into his solo hip-hop and rhyme-based work, as well as making guttural noises and screaming for metal.

Ant’s work is wobbly, messy, experimental, alternative, risky, funny,
endearing, silly, philosophical, witty, riddled with failure, loudly imperfect, loudly loud, and unapologetically authentic.

Ant believes strongly in making work that is loudly imperfect, embraces failure, and is heavily invested in the liveness between performer and audience.

Ant performing ‘A Ticklish Prophet’

 

 

Find out more

Ant’s website
Email: ant.lightfoot@gmail.com

VVN

 

VVN, a black woman wearing a long orange dress, sitting down in an atmospheric, smokey setting. Her eyes are closed, and she holds her hands at the bottom of her neck.

 

VVN (she/her) is a London-based multidisciplinary artist, singer/songwriter, and poet. Fusing singing, spoken word, movement, and storytelling, she draws on her Black British Nigerian heritage, performing in English and Igbo.

Her work explores love, healing, and spirituality through a neurodivergent Black woman’s lens. Compared to Lauryn Hill and Erykah Badu, she’s performed at major UK venues and internationally in Ghana, Nigeria, Japan, and beyond. A 2020 Voice UK contestant on Team Tom Jones, she recently toured with Natty & The Rebelship. Her upcoming EP, lovescore, blends neo-soul, Afrofusion, and R&B in a rich narrative soundscape. 

VVN performing ‘Heaven’

 

Find out more

Follow VVN on Instagram
Follow VVN on Bandcamp
More links for VVN

Kindred Prisms

 

A person with half-black, half-blonde hair looking downward. They are holding a mic. They are cast in a green-blue light. Projected onto the wall behind and above them is the silhouette of a humpback whale’s tail.

 

Kindred Prisms (they/them) is singer-songwriter from the archipelago of Hong Kong. They currently reside in England, where they have been exploring Celtic and English folk tunes while writing their own music.

Originally a poet, Kindred Prisms’ songs are the confluence of years of translating silence and swimming through the living and spirit worlds in a neurodivergent, disabled body.

They roam a musical landscape that spans “borders,” telling stories through winding melodies, fingerpicking, and more-than-human beings such as bears, dragonflies, and time rabbits. Passions include torrential rain, rolling hills, treasure hunts in the mists of time, and making live music accessible and safe for all.

Find out more

Kindred Prisms’ website
Kindred Prisms’ Instagram

Stottie

 

The image features a person with shoulder-length, curly light brown hair, looking directly at the camera with a neutral expression. They are wearing a light pink top. The background is a solid, muted dark brown colour, providing a simple contrast to the person’s light-coloured clothing and hair. A few strands of hair fall across their forehead and face
Credit: Gwen Howard

 

Based in London, San Francisco-born Stottie (she/they) is an indie pop singer-songwriter and producer. After years honing their craft behind the scenes, Stottie has developed a distinctive sound characterised by introspective lyrics and delicate melodies, echoing artists like Bon Iver, Sufjan Stevens, and Clairo.

As a songwriter, Stottie’s music has appeared in internationally syndicated TV programmes and art installations across London. With their debut track “Blue”, Stottie offers a first glimpse into their carefully cultivated sound, with Obscure Sound describing it as “lushly impactful pop.”

Stottie is particularly passionate about exploring the intersections of electronic music with gender equity and disability rights, and has received invitations to speak at institutions like Berklee College of Music and the Association for Popular Music Education.

Stottie’s album on Spotify

 

 

Find out more

Follow Stottie on Instagram
More links

Thanks to our funders

With thanks to Arts Council England and PRS Foundation for their continued support in making this programme possible.