Meet the six brilliant new artists on the Amex Gold Unsigned shortlist

NME

In partnership with Amex Gold Unsigned

NME and American Express have announced the final shortlist for their American Express Gold Unsigned initiative, with the six selected artists set to play at a decisive live showcase in London this week – check out the unsigned artists below.

Launched back in May as a new partnership between NME and American Express, Amex Gold Unsigned will give one new artist the chance to soundtrack and feature in a forthcoming American Express advertising campaign.

The chosen artist will also receive a £10,000 sync fee, mentoring from music industry professionals and a slot at Wilderness Festival on August 5.

The six shortlisted artists for Amex Gold Unsigned are:

Split The Dealer

Hailing from Reading, Split The Dealer – real name Sam Brett – describes his sound as “fundamentally honest, walking the wire between 90s influence and modern pop”. Brett recently became an official Sennheiser artist, while his single ‘Dreamstate’ featured on the popular gaming app Dream League Soccer 2022.

Megzz

The music of Megan Buckley, AKA Megzz, spans R&B, pop and neo-soul. The Northamptonshire-born, London-based solo artist says that she is keen to promote self-love and empowerment through her music, while also hoping to encourage people to speak out about their mental health.

Eliza Legzdina

Originally from Latvia, the now-London-based Legzdina is intent on “sticking a bejewelled middle finger up to the patriarchy” with her music. Growing up in the post-Soviet Union era, Legzdina remembers only hearing sex being discussed from a male perspective. “As a Queer Eastern-European woman, my music is unashamedly outspoken in its sex-positive affirmation,” she says now.

Jazzie Martian

Nottingham’s Jazzie Martian has built a “vivid, genre-fluid sound that explores the layered, everyday musings of a spiritually curious young man”. Primarily invoking elements of R&B and rap to soundtrack his storytelling vocal style, Jazzie says he “weaves stories around growing up, love and the highs and lows of ambition”.

Sola

Manchester’s Megan Sola-Guinto has already received the seal of approval from Arlo Parks, after the ‘Collapsed In Sunbeams’ singer/songwriter selected Sola’s song ‘Self-Destructing’ for her 2020 Drive Home From Glastonbury Mix for BBC Radio 1.

Sola’s most recent single ‘Embers’, a robust collaboration with the Canadian producer and songwriter Boom Dice (who has previously worked with the likes of Stormzy, Wolf Alice and Sofi Tukker), has gone on to rack up nearly 50,000 Spotify streams.

Ben Kidson

The London artist may have grown up on a musical diet of Nirvana, My Chemical Romance and Led Zeppelin, but these days Kidson is focused on carving out a career as a pop singer/songwriter.

“I was playing demos to my mates who were shocked that it was so pop-driven,” he recently reflected. “I’d always been this super ‘anti-chart music’ guy and hadn’t really listened to anything that was happening at the time. Someone joked that what I was making was ‘accidental pop music’, and from there it stuck.”

Check back on NME soon to find out which one of our six shortlisted acts have been chosen as the winner of Amex Gold Unsigned.

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