“It feels amazing. I was a bit shocked when I got the email because I wasn’t expecting it but I was so happy, excited, honoured and privileged to be nominated in that category as well as being amongst PNG’s incredible artist. Yeah, so happy!” That’s from Alyson Joyce, one of the nominees for Female Artist of the Year for the 2023 YUMI FM PNG Musik Awards set for the 17th of June 2023. Alyson is a proud Papua New Guinean /Australian multidisciplinary artist, with over 20 years of experience across the creative arts and entertainment industries. Alyson said, being separated from her country (PNG) and loved ones during Covid-19 has made her connect more to her culture and to write local music more. “It sort of instilled more fire in me to want to reconnect because I live overseas now and being forced to stay in Australia and not come back to PNG (during the pandemic) really hit me in my guts so, it filled a lot of creativity and it forced me to think about my identity as a Papua New Guinean and how I want to connect with our people.” Alyson said, the biggest highlight of that year was that she was able to reconnect with her identity as a Papua New Guinean and to channel that through creativity and create music. There’s no stop to what’s coming next and like Alyson, she has many plans ahead of her but for now, she says that she will be releasing her new single this week. “I’m having some really great conversations with some of our local artist about regulating the industry on how we can better support the industry and how we can also better support our artist through long term infrastructure, workshops and trainings and other things like that.” She added that she is looking forward to travel around the country to get to know the people and the music from each of the provinces. She is working on some exciting projects that will hopefully help to catapult PNG onto a global stage. Alyson further encouraged young and talented musicians out there to never give up because the music industry in our country can be very challenging because there is not much support. “Just be patient and innovative. Look for ways to get your music out there. There are so many new platforms out there and when you feel that creativity coming, just let it in and see what happens.” “And I also think that collaboration is a great way to create music because we rise by lifting others and that’s so important for us in our country.”