Spotify Announces Winners of 2nd Annual 'Sound Up' Podcast Accelerator for Women of Color

Spotify has announced the winners of its second annual Sound Up program, a five-day podcast accelerator designed to help women of color transform their creative ideas into fully-developed podcasts.

Out of 10 women selected to participate in this year’s program from a pool of thousands of applicants, four -- Christina Orlando, Janae Burris, Shayla Martin and SK -- have been awarded $10,000 each to fund their proposed podcasts, the streaming service announced Tuesday (Sept. 17).

Orlando -- a non-binary, Latinx New Yorker -- developed a time travel podcast concept that explores queer history; stand-up comedian Burris will explore how the loss of fathers affects people's lives; Martin’s podcast will center on issues of addiction, recovery and maintaining sobriety through the perspective of people of color; and SK -- a South Asian immigrant, former attorney and sexual abuse/domestic violence survivor -- will chronicle her story in a new podcast coming to Spotify.

As the streaming service previously announced, each of the selected women will retain the intellectual property rights to their podcasts and will not be required to distribute them on Spotify.

Among last year’s winners, Titi Shodiya -- a scientific auditor at the National Institute of Standards and Technology -- just had her science and pop culture podcast Dope Labs (co-hosted with Zakiya Whatley) renewed by Spotify for a second season.

Sound Up is one of Spotify’s hallmark programs designed to uplift women of color and amplify their voices. More information can be found here.