Andrew Sherman
Audio By Carbonatix
The North Texas independent music scene is about to receive its boldest boost yet.
The team behind Jambaloo, the grassroots music initiative from the Mullen & Mullen Law Firm that began as a 12-show concert series and grew into a festival credited with helping revive North Texas’ live music landscape, is offering one local artist $20,000 and a Grammy-level recording opportunity.
“We always wanted Jambaloo to be bigger,” Jambaloo co-founder Joseph Morrison said. “We did not have a roadmap when we started, but we knew there was a gap in how local artists were supported. This is part of filling that gap.”
Andrew Sherman
The newly announced Jambaloo Music Prize is an annual award that will honor the best full-length album released by a Dallas-Fort Worth musician in 2025. The winner will be crowned at a free showcase on June 6, 2026, inside the historic Longhorn Ballroom.
The winner will not just walk away with a check. Along with the $20,000, they will record a professionally produced single with four-time Grammy-winning engineer Tre Nagella at Luminous Sound, have their music aired on KXT 91.7’s Homegrown programs and see their album featured prominently in every Josey Records store in North Texas.
Sierra Potts
Promotional support from Prekindle, Do214 and others will give the album a level of exposure that most independent artists cannot access on their own.
The idea for the prize has been in development for nearly a year for co-founders Corey Pond and Morrison. They began discussing the concept at the beginning of 2025 and decided to move forward with it by May.
Pond said the prize is designed to give artists more than a temporary boost.
“Dallas-Fort Worth already has great art and music,” Pond said. “This will take somebody who is already good, who has made something great and give them a major leg up. It is bigger than any local record deal, and unlike a label deal, this money and support are theirs to use.”
The music prize builds on Jambaloo’s recent efforts to put money and resources directly into the local scene. Earlier this year, the initiative awarded a $20,000 Venue Prize to keep Fort Worth venue, the Cicada, from closing, part of a larger mission to build sustainable infrastructure for artists from the ground up.
A panel of 15 industry professionals, including Grammy winners, artists, media figures and civic leaders, will review submissions and select 10 semifinalists. Those acts will receive three months of promotion from Jambaloo and its partners.
From there, three finalists will be chosen to perform at the Longhorn Ballroom showcase before a yet-to-be-announced national headliner. The winner will be determined by a combination of jury scores and public voting.
Sierra Potts
“It is not just about one band,” Morrison said. “Ten artists will receive some support from this, and three will get to play on that stage but one of them is going to get a serious launchpad for their career.”
The June 6 event will feature performances from the three finalists before the headliner, who will be announced during Jambaloo’s 2026 festival in February. Nagella will present the award live on stage and KXT’s Benji McPhail will serve as emcee for the evening.
The prize is only part of a larger plan for Jambaloo’s future, though the rest are still to be announced. And just like the festival, the prize is intended to become an annual fixture.
“Without question, this is something we will do every year,” Morrison said. “The festival, the venue prize, the album prize- they are all here to stay.”
Submissions for the 2025 Jambaloo Music Prize are now open at jambaloo.live/prizesubmission and time will tell which North Texas musician or band emerges to claim it in June.