Griff, Pa Salieu and Rina Sawayama are up for Brits Rising Star Award.

Instead of the BRIT Awards highlighting Rina Sawayama, she directed the spotlight on the British Phonographic Industry (BPI).

In fact, Rina Sawayama has dominated the headlines with her nomination. The 30-year-old pop star was not eligible for the Brit awards or the Mercury prize, because the Japanese musician didn’t hold a British passport or dual citizenship. After going public with the story, the BPI quickly made changes and announced that it had changed the eligibility criteria.
Past winners include Adele, Sam Smith and Florence + the Machine.

Watch out for  Skylar Lee and the fun track Whoopsie Daisy. The song ventures into old Taylor Swift territory before she took the indie route.  Skylar moved from PA to Nashville and showcased her music at the ASCAP Writers Night, via by Big Yellow Dog Publishing. The glitzed-up pop singer cites Dua Lipa, Dagny, Bleachers, and Carly Rae Jepson as influences.  Give it a stream on KOAR’s Indie Invaders Playlist. You may like if you love fun upbeat pop.

Check out the new track Rain On My Parade by Command Sisters. No, it’s not the Duffy song, but it’s a very cool track reminiscent of the 90’s act Garbage fronted by Shirley Manson. If you like sad 90’s indie pop, you’ll love this.

“While we were writing it, we wanted to capture the moment a victim realizes that the person that hurts them no longer has control of them. It’s basically a middle finger moment” shares the duo who are made up siblings Charlotte and Sarah.

After a string of successes the Canadian duo signed with Republic and released several singles including “Steal Your Heart,” “Feel Good,” “Lonely Lullaby,” “I Like It,” and “I Can Do What I Want To”.

Check out track In Our Mind by Giovanna Castronari aka as Nari. It’s hard to find artist comparisons because Nari found her own music space. The 22 year old Berlin based artist grew up as the daughter of a jazz musician and was influenced by genres like Bossa Nova and classical jazz.
Later, she found inspiration in female folk music like Dillon, Daughter or Norah Jones. She landed on Spotify’c Cafe and Melancholic Indie Playlists. Give it a stream on KOAR’s Indie Invaders.

Twitter boss Jack Dorsey is buying Jay Z’s streaming platform Tidal hoping to find new ways for artists to make money.

If you’ve never heard of Tidal, that’s not shocking. Jay-Z bought Tidal for millions but itnever found proper footing because Spotify and Apple Music dominated the market.
Tidal never had a big subscriber base, hence, never paid artists substantial money.

Anyhow, Jesse Dorogusker, the Square executive now in charge of Tidal says,
“We see musicians as entrepreneurs who have some tools but not others. They don’t have great financial systems.”

Will Tidal help artists sell merchandise and tickets using data? I’m not sure what the plan is….