
Black Women in Music
Highlight Black women in the music industry who inspire you.
Prizes
- First place:
- $1,000
- Second place:
- $500
- Third place:
- $250
Status
CompletedTimeline
Submissions opened
Feb 17, 2021
Submissions closed
Feb 24, 2021 5:59 AM CUT
Results
Feb 26, 2021
Prizes
- First place:
- $1,000
- Second place:
- $500
- Third place:
- $250
Status
CompletedTimeline
Submissions opened
Feb 17, 2021
Submissions closed
Feb 24, 2021 5:59 AM CUT
Results
Feb 26, 2021
About this challenge
From the early stages of music, beginning with Blues and Jazz in the ’20s to hip-hop and pop music from the ’90s onward, you will find one common denominator: Black women leading the way.
Whether behind the scenes, in front of the mic, building empires, or shaking things up in the boardroom, Black women play a significant role in moving music forward every single day.
For this Challenge, we want you to highlight some of the songwriters, musicians, executives, and producers who have left their mark on music – and even on you. Enter this Challenge and share the biggest hits or most significant contributions by Black women in music! How did their career impact your views on music? On what level do their lives and decisions resonate with you? Does their presence in the music industry bring visibility to you and other important causes? Whether they’re responsible for your favorite record of all time or for shaping your career choices, share a story celebrating and honoring Black women in the music industry.
It’s hard to imagine what the world would sound like without their voices. ❤️
How to enter
For your story to be eligible, it must be between 600 and 5,000 words and adhere to our Community Guidelines. Stories published on Vocal and entered into the contest up until February 23, 2021, at 11:59 PM EST will be entered for consideration. Official Rules for the Challenge can be found here.
The Black Women in Music Challenge is exclusive to Vocal+ members. To learn more and upgrade to Vocal+ visit https://vocal.media/vocal-plus.
To be eligible to win the grand prize, second place, or third place prizes, you must be over the age of 13 and residing in a country where Stripe is available at the time of entry. A complete list of countries where Stripe is available can be found here—winners will need to have a Stripe account created and connected in order to receive the prizes. For this reason, entrants located outside of any of these 39 countries will not be eligible to win.
Open challenges
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Challenge resources
Snafu Senryu Winners
Dana Crandell’s ‘Hand Stamp’, the winner of our Snafu Senryu Challenge, brings humor and a thoughtful, original idea to our theme. How to convey that awkward moment in seventeen syllables, neatly dispersed over three lines? The delight of this challenge is that form and content seem perfectly matched: no one wants to linger too long over these embarrassing moments (to say the least!) and yet we can’t help giving them space in our minds. Why not make good use of that space and turn anxiety into art?
Vocal Curation TeamPublished 7 days ago in ResourcesUnveiling the Winners of the 2023 Vocal Writing Awards 🥁
We've judged, you've judged, and we've all waited... It's finally time to announce the winners of the 2023 Vocal Writing Awards! This year's winners, comprised of the highest caliber works across 8 categories — haiku poetry, free verse poetry, romance fiction, young adult fiction, horror fiction, fantasy fiction, science fiction, and flash fiction — are so worth the read.
Vocal Curation TeamPublished 11 days ago in ResourcesUnder a Spell Challenge Winners
What makes a spell? That’s what we found ourselves thinking as we read Madi Haywood’s terrific winning story, The March of the Women. It begins with the — very real — words of Ethyl Smyth’s 1911 ’‘March of the Women’ — a song which became the anthem of the movement to get women the vote in Britain. In this stirring piece of historical fiction, Haywood not only uses wonderful images (“The short heels on their worn boots clicked the ground together, a harmonious thunder that echoed and cracked around them”) but also creates a real sense that Smyth’s song is a spell, something that has a power beyond words, that works on its own so that those who hear it cannot resist. “Once the song had begun, it couldn’t be stopped,” Haywood writes. “As long as they sung while doing their work, they couldn’t get caught.” An unusual winner, perhaps — there are no clichés of witches here, no magic in the ordinary sense. But Madi Haywood has truly absorbed the spirit of this challenge and made it their own.
Vocal Curation TeamPublished 12 days ago in Resources