Searchlight alumni: where are they now?

CBC Music's Searchlight kicked off in 2013, with Sherman Downey and the Ambiguous Case taking home the grand prize that year. While the band from Corner Brook, N.L., unfortunately broke up two years later, plenty of musicians have gone on to have long and productive careers post-Searchlight, often using the annual competition as a launching pad to reach new fans in every province and territory in the country.

As we enter the 11th run of Searchlight this year, we wanted to take a look at previous artists who've participated to see where they find themselves today. Some made it all the way to the grand prize, and some weren't that close — but we remember them, and their track records speak for themselves.

Below, we look at eight past Searchlight entrants to see where their stars are shining today.

Savannah Ré

The Toronto-based R&B star entered the contest in 2016, but lost to fellow Torontonian Tafari Anthony in the regional finals (scroll down for more on Anthony).  

Ré has been incredibly busy since: she released her debut EP, Opia, in 2020, which was longlisted for the 2021 Polaris Music Prize; she participated in a songwriting talent search run by American singer/songwriter/producer Babyface; signed to Boi1da's 1Music label; and spent a month opening for Jessie Reyez on the singer's 2018 tour, Being Human on Tour.

Ré made Juno Award history in 2021 by being the first artist nominated for both the contemporary R&B recording of the year (for "Where You Are") as well as the traditional R&B/soul recording of the year (for "Solid"), and made history again when she became the first artist to ever win the latter category. She has gone on to win that same category every year since.

Terra Lightfoot

Hamilton roots rocker Terra Lightfoot has become a staple on the airwaves and at festivals over the last decade, and she entered Searchlight in 2015 leading up to the release of her second full-length album, Every Time My Mind Runs Wild. 

Her third studio album, 2017's New Mistakes, earned Lightfoot her first Juno nomination, for adult alternative album of the year. It was also longlisted for the 2018 Polaris Music Prize. In 2019, Lightfoot organized a tour of all women — including all band members — that she co-headlined with Lindi Ortega and Begonia. Called the Longest Road Show, Lightfoot told the Toronto Star: "This is for every woman who has ever been questioned about what she's capable of or what she knows."

Lightfoot released her fourth studio album, Consider the Speed, in 2020.

Nuela Charles

The powerhouse R&B/soul singer from Edmonton entered Searchlight in its inaugural year, just shortly after she released her debut album, Aware. Charles has since captivated the country with her incredible voice, and her three subsequent albums — 2016's The Grand Hustle, 2018's Distant Danger (an EP) and 2019's Melt — all garnered Juno nominations for adult contemporary album of the year.

In 2022, Charles released her fifth and self-titled album, which also resonated as her most personal one yet. Earlier this year she hit a million streams on Spotify for her 2016 album — an incredible achievement for an indie artist doing it on her own.  

Aquakultre

Halifax's Lance Sampson, a.k.a. Aquakultre, won Searchlight in 2018, which immediately got him into the Allan Slaight Juno Master Class that year, and gave him a trip to the 2019 Junos to perform at JunoFest plus a week-long residency at Studio Bell in Calgary. Sampson used it all to focus on recording his debut album, Legacy, which he released in 2020 — and it was longlisted for the Polaris Prize.

The plumber-by-day musician, who had only been making music seriously for about a year before entering Searchlight, started focusing more and more on his art, sometimes as a solo artist, sometimes in a band (as on Legacy) or as a duo (as with DJ Uncle Fester, on his second 2020 album, Bleeding Gums Murphy, which made CBC Music's best-of list for the year). 

2022 saw Aquakultre's work and influence expand even more, as he opened a community jam space in his hometown, and released an incredible followup album, Don't Trip. The title track was arguably the song of the summer, and Aquakultre again made our best-of list at the end of the year — and the album was just longlisted for the Polaris Prize. 

MattMac

Matthew Monias, a.k.a. MattMac, has made it to the Searchlight Top 100 two years in a row — 2021 and 2022 — and his star just keeps rising as the months tick by. Most recently, the Oji-Cree rapper from Grand Hill First Nation in Northern Manitoba was the 2022 grand prize winner of Canada's Walk of Fame RBC Emerging Musician program, a milestone he credits to time, effort and patience. As he shared in his advice for future musicians to CBC: "Without neither of them, it's going to be a bit difficult and it's going to make it seem like you're not moving. But if you maintain all three, you'll get where you want to be."

That approach has served the artist from an early age, as MattMac, who was born blind, taught himself to rap, play guitar and piano, launching his music career in 2016 from his remote community nearly 500 kilometres north of Winnipeg. He has since released two full-length albums, amassed nearly one million streams on Spotify, and performed onstage with Nelly Furtado.

Alicia Moffet

The Quebec singer, who made the Searchlight Top 100 in 2021, is no stranger to contests: in 2013 she won the sixth season of The Next Star, a Canadian reality TV series hosted on YTV, before she had yet to release her own music.

The singer now has two full-lengths — 2020's Billie Ave. and 2022's Intertwine — and her singles are often bonafide radio hits that amass millions of views. Last year's kiss-off anthem "Lullaby" hit No. 8 on our list of top 100 songs of 2022 — and has reached more than seven million streams on Spotify. Moffet is becoming a certified hit-maker.

Desiree Dawson

The singer from White Rock, B.C., took home the Searchlight grand prize in 2016, and dropped her debut EP, Wild Heart, the following year — and performed it for CBC Music for the release.

Dawson didn't put much during out the next few years, and when the pandemic hit, she felt the need to reconnect with the world and moved her life into an RV to travel around B.C. and write her music. "Whenever I go somewhere, I have my whole home with me and then I show up on these beautiful places on the land that inspire me so deeply to rest," Dawson told CBC. "And then once I'm resting, all of the songs and the melodies, the lyrics — it all just kind of starts to come up."

That rest and writing resulted in a beautiful followup EP, 2021's Meet You at the Light, which garnered Dawson her first Juno nomination. That same year, her video for the album's title track won best music video at South by Southwest. 

Tafari Anthony

Tafari Anthony was Toronto's regional finalist in Searchlight 2016 (a category that no longer exists), and his fingerprints can be found all over that city's music scene. As a producer, writer and performer, Anthony has worked with Tanika Charles and the Fretless, and recently on Priyanka's "Bad Bitches Don't Cry." 

Anthony released his own debut EP shortly after placing so high in Searchlight, and his single "Know Better" was one of CBC Music's top songs of 2016. He then took some time away from releasing his own music, and returned in 2020 with the EP They Way You See Me — which went on to get the singer his first Juno nomination.