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DAPHNE
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DAPHNE Crowned Winner of Garage Band People's Choice Contest at NXNE
The 21-year-old indie pop artist from Toronto has won the festival's award, voted on by fans to determine the next big emerging artist.
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DAPHNE has been crowned the winner of NXNE's 2nd annual Garage Band People's Choice Award, sponsored by Seth & Riley’s Garage Hard Lemonade.
The 21-year-old indie pop artist from Toronto has won this year's contest — which puts the power in the hands of festival-goers to vote on the emerging musician that moves them most.
"I'm really grateful and still in shock," DAPHNE says. "I'm very grateful that my community pulled through for me."
DAPHNE has won more than just bragging rights. She's won a $2,000 cash prize, courtesy of Garage Hard Lemonade, plus studio time with an engineer provided by Slaight Music, Blundstone boots from the Australian Boot Company, a $500 gift card to Long & McQuade, a stay at the Drake Hotel in Toronto, a gift pack of treats by Jolly Ranchers Gummies and an international music promotion package for one single in Caster and three months MTR radio tracking provided by PlayMPE.
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The award exemplifies NXNE's mission to champion groundbreaking new music and culture with a global perspective — all while staying true to its roots as a proudly Canadian festival.
It's a supercharge for DAPHNE's music career, which is still in its early stages but picking up some serious momentum.
The award win follows her performance at the Burdock on Saturday, June 14, which she calls the best show she's ever played. DAPHNE has been writing songs since she was six years old, but her budding music career got its start about two years ago when she was a student at Toronto Metropolitan University's new Professional Music program. As part of an initiative organized by students, she took a trip to Los Angeles to record a song with a professional producer. That song eventually became her debut single, "Consequences." She had no initial plan to release it, but when she posted it to TikTok, people responded.
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DAPHNE compares her music to alt-leaning pop artists like Chappell Roan and Olivia Rodrigo, both young women who articulate complicated coming-of-age emotions into catchy and relatable tunes and an infectious stage presence.
"A running theme in my music is living life and what that means, how to be present and live life more," she says. "I want to encourage people to dance through all their overwhelming feelings so they can just live a little tiny bit more every day."
You can hear that in her latest single, "Crying on the Ceiling," which sings through the feeling of a young woman's world being turned upside down.
One thing DAPHNE admires about Chappell Roan is her ability to build a whole world through her music. She always knew she wanted to do something in the arts, and quickly learned that music would let her combine all of her creative pursuits — visual art, photography, film, dance — into one project.
DAPHNE already has plans for her first two EPs. The first, GIRL, will be a series of five visual pieces with 3D design and special digital marketing entwined throughout, including special merch and video releases for each song. A major proponent of community building, she's also thinking of ways to involve her fans in each video.
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The release will create characters and visual motifs that will then come back in her second EP, which will explore her relationship with her younger self, a.k.a. GIRL.
The winnings from the Garage Band People's Choice Award will all go back into her music, DAPHNE says. She's thinking about building a live rig to take on the road to fulfill her goal of more live shows and give her more control onstage and create the possibility to incorporate live effects. She's also exploring how to experiment with more 3D design, world-building and recording.
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"I'm excited for it to all play out," she says.
Winning the award early in her career empowers her to get even more ambitious with where she hopes to take the project.
"It means so much to me so early on in my career to have all this support from such an amazing community."
Read more about Garage Band People's Choice here.
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