musifie, a global music creation and direct-to-fan platform, has partnered with Divo, a Warner Music India company, to launch musifie x Divo SoundQuest, a year-round, festival-led contest series aimed at discovering and advancing independent artists across India.
The strategic partnership will run six major contests annually, each aligned with key moments in India’s cultural calendar including Holi, World Music Day, Independence Day, Navratri and Durga Puja, Diwali, and Republic Day. The structure is designed to create a consistent, high-impact discovery pipeline rather than a one-off talent hunt.
Across each edition, artists will be evaluated across nine musical skillsets including Vocalist, Composer, Lyricist, Arranger, Guitar, Keyboard, Wind, Percussion and Bass. Entries will be judged using a 100-point standardised rubric covering technique, creativity, groove, tone and arrangement, with the aim of ensuring transparency and industry-level evaluation.
Instead of a single overall winner, nine category winners will collaborate to produce one original track using musifie’s project workflow, which includes version control, stem sharing, contracts, credits and split sheets. The finished single will be mixed and mastered with funding from Divo and released globally across streaming platforms, supported by a marketing and amplification plan spanning PR, influencer campaigns, campus activations, UGC challenges, paid media and editorial pitching.
Each contest will follow a 12-week campaign arc, moving from submissions and screening through jury shortlists and finals, before culminating in the collaborative release. The organisers describe the format as a closed-loop system that connects discovery, collaboration, release and marketing, ensuring artists gain tangible outcomes beyond the contest stage.
Anil Joseph, Founder of musifie, said the initiative addresses long-standing gaps in India’s talent discovery ecosystem. “Artists do not just win a contest here. They collaborate, create, release and gain real visibility. That continuity is what the independent ecosystem has been missing.”
Shahir Muneer, Founder and Director of Divo, said the partnership enables the company to support independent talent at national scale. “Six cultural moments each year and a collaborative single every cycle creates a repeatable structure for breaking new artists.”
Strategic consultant Soumini Sridhara Paul added that SoundQuest is designed as a culturally tuned, scalable IP with a pan-India, multilingual and multi-genre approach, targeting college talent, independent musicians and micro-communities across metros and Tier 2 and Tier 3 markets.
With SoundQuest, musifie and Divo aim to position every festival window as a national moment for discovering new voices, while building a sustainable pathway from creation to commercial release for India’s next wave of independent artists.
