SoundCloud reveal breakout artist promo program
SoundCloud announce a new program for rising artists which has silently elevated artists like Shaboozey and Teezo Touchdown in the last year.
SoundCloud‘s 2024 has focused on elevating artists from their first play to stardom. Their new program aims to carry rising artists along their rising hype at the right moment to make a lasting impact.
Ascending is the name of Soundcloud’s new artist development program. Ascending has been quietly piloting its effect over the last year with breakout artists like Shaboozey, Barry Can’t Swim, TiaCorine, Teezo Touchdown, and Odetari, amongst others. SoundCloud are now going big with it.
Ascending highlights and accelerates artists who are gaining organic traction on SoundCloud. With a helping hand, SoundCloud push these artists further on their rise for a month to give them the best chance to capitalise on that traction with the discovery of a new, dedicated fanbase.
SoundCloud reveal that their program has seen a 60% average increase in followers for artists during their month on Ascending. They state that artists on Ascending see almost double the streams during their time in the program.
Their new program nicely complements the platform’s other significant efforts this year to push artists up the ladder to notability. Most notably their new First Fans algorithm for reaching initial listeners and their Buzzing playlists for pushing growing tracks to genre-specific audiences.
SoundCloud Ascending’s artist for September
This month, SoundCloud are raising Laila! with the public release of their Ascending program. Laila! has seen global weekly streams rise from 1.6 million to 56 million since April this year. Her latest single has been making waves this year, racking up over 44 million streams globally, across all platforms.
Laila! writes: “I’m excited to be a part of Ascending’s inaugural program. The support from SoundCloud has been amazing and with my release of my first album ‘Gap Year on the 6th’ this is gearing up to be a September I will always remember!”
Laila has signed to SoundCloud’s Joint Venture alongside Sickamore’s IIIXL Studio, who says: “I have been involved in the music industry for over 20 years, and Laila is the type of talent that comes along once in a generation. She’s a producer, songwriter, and creator, making her the perfect ambassador for everything that IIIXL, SoundCloud, and Ascending represents.”
How can artists get promoted on SoundCloud Ascending
As with SoundCloud’s other new promotional features for getting new and smaller artists heard, only Next Pro subscribers are eligible for an Ascending feature. Artists will also need to be signed and releasing new music during their promotion month.
Additionally, they’ll need to be able to demonstrate rising engagement and/or stream growth on the platform. Therefore, Ascending is really for artists already having a significant impact and is to progress them to the next stage of their journey.
However, SoundCloud’s focus on initial listens like with their First Fans algorithm reveals their commitment to artists of all sizes.