Songwriters Hall of Fame Awards 2023 Scholarships to ASCAP Songwriters to Durand Bernarr, Nick Carpenter & Shungudzo
June 5, 2023
About Durand Bernarr
With a sound that has been coined as "Gangster Musical Theatre" by Qveen Herby, Durand Bernarr is one-part Little Richard, one-part Rick James, plus a heavy dash of powerhouse vocals & witty lyrical storytelling. The result is uniquely Durand - your favorite singer's favorite singer!
Durand not only grew up in a home where his mother was a professional music teacher & vocal coach, but his father has also worked to provide sound & tour production to some of the greats in music such as Jay-Z, Earth, Wind & Fire, even Bob The Builder & the late great Whitney Houston.
Durand has had the opportunity to sit under, collaborate, & learn from some of music's leading legends and contributors such as Earth, Wind & Fire, Producer Yonni (1st cousin on his father's side) The Internet, Anderson. Paak, Sam Sparro, J*DaVeY, Teedra Moses, Adam Blackstone, Tweet, comedian Rickey Smiley & Erykah Badu.
In 2016, Durand released his first EP, Sound Check - & his track "Around" from that project was featured on BET's hot new revamp of Boomerang. Billboard named him an "artist to know" in 2019, the same year during which he co-produced and featured on "Freefall," a track on KAYTRANADA's album BUBBA, which has more than 2 million plays on Spotify alone.
In 2020, Durand made huge waves with his self-titled album DUR&, which debuted at the #1 spot on the Apple Music R&B charts. Featuring collaborations with the likes of Ari Lennox, KAYTRANADA, Anna Wise, & bassist "Buddah" Foster Jr., DUR& is as playful, witty & sonically imaginative as it is packed with infectious hooks and just plain GOOD singing.
In the words of Lena Waithe, who named Durand as one of her favorite singers, "Durand Bernarr is an amazing artist that kills it all the time."
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About Nick Carpenter
Nick Carpenter wants honesty, even when it's uncomfortable. Under the moniker Medium Build, Carpenter finds levity in the rough edges and complications, crafting slice-of-life songs about growing up and messing up. "The worst thing a song can do is not make me feel," Carpenter says. "I want a song to tell me too much." After growing out of his church upbringing of mission trips and "sad Jesus songs," Carpenter found himself in Anchorage, Alaska, where Medium Build began to take its full form. A songwriter first, Carpenter finds inspiration in storytellers like Billy Joel and Randy Newman, combining narrative lyrics with an R&B-tinged, guitar-driven production style. Medium Build is an amalgamation of genres and influences with Carpenter at its core, approaching life and music with humor, empathy and casual absurdity.
About Shungudzo
Growing up in a dictatorship where the government-controlled both speech and music taught Shungudzo to see and use art as activism — be it directly or by always creating from the freest, most emotionally uncensored places possible. Shungudzo is a multinational, multicultural, multi-genre artist, producer, writer and poet who believes that art can, must and will pave the road to a better present and future. She is known for being a remarkable wordsmith, for her unique approach to melody, production and vocal production, and for creating a space where her collaborators feel safe to express and lead with their truth and individuality. She has both helped develop new projects (including her own) and helped bring new life to preexisting ones.Before becoming a full-time musician, Shungudzo broke racial barriers by becoming the first female of color on the Zimbabwean national artistic gymnastics team, competing alongside some of the very people and sporting organizations that bullied her as a child. She went on to become a semi-professional ballerina, a scholarship engineering student and teacher at Stanford University, and then the Editor-in-Chief of a top world news collective. It was the corruption and censorship within that group that helped Shungudzo realize that the best way for her to make a positive and meaningful impact, in exactly the ways she wanted to, was by pursuing her lifelong dream of becoming an artist.
Shungudzo's musical credits include writing, producing and performing on four songs on a Grammy-winning African album (Angelique Kidjo's Mother Nature), writing 10 songs on a dance album nominated for a BRIT Album of the Year award (Jessie Ware's What's Your Pleasure?), an Alternative Album of the Year JUNO nomination (Chiiild's Hope For Sal"), multiple UK hit songs and albums and a #1 Billboard dance song. Her debut album, I'm not a mother, but I have children, which she wrote and produced, laid the groundwork for what promises to be an impactful career as a solo artist. She toured the UK and Ireland for one month last year, opening for Kae Tempest, and playing in 2,500-capacity venues. Shun is also part of a dance collective, KUU, alongside artist/producers Riton and Alex Metric. Shun's versatile approach captures the energy of someone who refuses to be put in a box and yet also relates to the depths of all people. Her style ranges from folk, to pop to afro funk, and she is interested in collaborating with people of all cultures, in all genres, whose primary goal in making art is to give something good to the world.
Shunguzo is currently finishing her second and third albums, developing two musical docuseries, three feature films and a children's musical. She also has multiple singles and albums with other artists awaiting release.
Find more information about all of the 2023 Abe Olman Scholarship recipients in the Scholarship section of the songhall.org website.