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Snapchat announces Sounds Creator Fund for independent artists with grants up to $100,000

Snapchat will evaluate the artists’ level of engagement on the platform before approving the grant.

Snapchat

Credit: Chesnot/Getty

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Snapchat has announced a new Sounds Creator Fund aimed at developing artists who distribute music on its platform.

Emerging and independent artists distributing their music on Snapchat via Distrokid will be eligible to apply for monthly grants of up to $5,000 a song, capped at 20 songs total for a maximum grant of $100,000, according to Variety. The program is open to artists based in the US who are at least 16 years old and have parental consent where needed.

Snapchat will evaluate the artists’ level of engagement on the platform before approving the grant, which will not be open to musicians signed with music label and publisher partners of Snapchat, which includes most of the major labels like Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group and Sony Music Publishing.

“Snap wants to help emerging, independent artists produce quality content and build their brands by recognising Sounds creators who are driving trends and defining cultural moments – not just based on their follower numbers,” the company told Variety in a statement.

Snapchat first introduced the Sounds on Snap feature in 2020, which allows users to add music to their videos much in the way competitor TikTok does. Since the introduction of the feature, Snapchat claims that 2.7 billion videos have been created using the feature that have garner a total of over 183 billion views.

Dragonforce guitarist Herman Li has recently discussed how he feels about the new talent emerging on social media, admitting that when seeing players on YouTube and TikTok, it is not uncommon for him to feel as though he is “not good enough”.

“I gotta tell you, man, this is something that I’ve discussed with some of the best guitar players in the world,” he explains. “The more we learn, the more we see, It makes even us pros feel like ‘Oh my god, we’re just not good enough.’”

“I feel really lucky that I’m still excited when I listen to music and see players play. I look at [people on] TikTok, ‘What? How do you play that?’”

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