Genesis Owusu, Jerome Farah and May-A voted the winners of Vanda and Young Songwriting contest

The Aussie winners of the world’s biggest song prize have penned deeply personal songs about struggles including bi-racial identity.

“Write from your heart, don’t write what you think people want to hear,” was the first piece of advice emerging pop artist May-A was given when she started penning songs at 13.

Following her heart has put the 20-year-old indie pop artist in the winner’s circle with breakout star Genesis Owusu and another rising voice Jerome Farah in the 2022 Vanda and Young Songwriting Competition, the world’s biggest prize for composers.

Genesis Owusu is going to need a bigger trophy cabinet. Picture: Supplied.

Owusu took out first place with Gold Chains, his commentary on the smoke and mirrors of the music industry which he said was “inspired by life, the music industry and the reality of certain situations compared to outside misconceptions of them.”

R & B vocalist Farah came second with Mikey Might, a deeply personal song about his struggles with bi-racial identity with the powerful refrain: “Way too white to be a black kid, right? / Not enough to live that white kid life, am I ever gonna feel right?”

And May-A won third place with her sunny pop song Time I Love To Waste about falling in love with a girl at high school.

May-A scored three wins in this year’s contest. Picture: Supplied.

She also finished with two runners-up prizes for her 2020 single Apricots and her collaboration with ARIA-winning Best New Artist Budjerah on their duet Talk.

May-A said collaborating with writers Christian Lo Russo and Robbie De Sa since she was a teenager, and now other artists including global EDM superstar Flume, had been invaluable in helping her hone her craft.

“The best thing about collaboration is the unpredictable nature of it, it’s an excuse to do something weird,” she said.

The alternative pop artist said the Vanda and Young prize, which now receives entries from all over the world but continues to be taken out by local writers, shone a light on one of Australia’s growing export industries – songwriting.

“Songwriting still doesn’t feel like it’s something that is valued in Australia,” she said from Los Angeles where she is writing for her debut album.

“People like festival music, they like radio music but I don’t know if they really like Australian music or if there are enough avenues to be able to find it, to listen to songs that haven’t been shoved in their face,” she said.

“I feel like if you’re not making easily marketable music, if you’re doing cool, experimental, random music that’s not going to blow up on TikTok or get on playlists because they don’t know where to put you, how are people going to connect with it?”

People have indeed connected with May-A’s pop, with her songs generating well in excess of 30 million streams since she started putting out her songs in 2019.

“I could say it’s the honesty of the songs that have connected with fans but I also think it’s because they don’t sound like they are stuck in a place, like America, or Britain or Australia. It’s pop enough to work but not too obvious.”

Originally published as Genesis Owusu, Jerome Farah and May-A voted the winners of Vanda and Young Songwriting contest