Nailah Blackman and her producer/manager Anson Soverall have snagged a top three position in an international songwriting competition.
Blackman and Soverall copped third place in the 2020 International Songwriting Competition (ISC) in the Music Video category with the song 'Boujee'. 'Boujee' was released last year.
Blackman's song 'Games' was also awarded an Honorable Mention in the World Music category.
ISC told the duo via email that although being selected an Honorable Mention does not garner any physical prizes, they are still considered to be an ISC winner.
ISC said that with over 26,000 entries from 158 countries, only one percent of all entries made it to Honorable Mention.
The third-place winners walk away with one free release (Single or Album) and YouTube Monetisation provided by TuneCore, a three-month subscription to Merch Cat and a six-month Platinum Membership from SongU.
Responding to her third-place win, Blackman told Loop News that she is shocked.
"I am super-shocked and elated over this as this whole International Songwriting thing came out of the blue and I just put my best energy behind it," she said.
Blackman said it definitely places a spotlight on her songwriting talent.
"I am very, very honoured to be given recognition for my songwriting because I don't think it is something people pay attention to...rarely do people ever look into the work that goes into songwriting so I am very happy that that's paid notice, just the entire collaboration because it wasn't just the songwriting but the music behind it which inspired the songwriting and the music video that brought the music video to life," she said acknowledging Soverall and video director Captain Flexx.
Soverall described the win as a major accomplishment.
He told Loop they have been nominated for other competitions but this is the first time they ever placed.
"It is one thing to be nominated but to be considered in the winner circle gives you the confidence to dream bigger and reach for higher. We have some big aspirations for this year, right now we working on Nailah's album, we working on some big records, couple collabs and the goal is to strive now to make our mark on the Billboard charts and be further nominated ad recognised for more prestigious awards. We real excited right now," he said.
The ISC is an annual song contest whose mission is to provide the opportunity for both aspiring and established songwriters to have their songs heard in a professional, international arena.