The December issue of Connected always gives us a nice chance to reflect on the year gone by, and the reflection 2025 gives us sure is a pretty one!
It was a year that brought us new guidelines, new apps, and many new features, including pre-releases and Musixmatch Merch. Most importantly, 2025 alsot brought us many new Rookies, Graduates, Curators, and Specialists, and it’s these members of our Community that we’d like to celebrate in this special edition of Connected.
Earlier in the month we invited our Slack and Instagram followers to nominate fellow community members for a variety of awards. Let’s get down to seeing the results!
The ‘Meme Machine’ Award
This award is for the community’s reigning Slack entertainer - the person who enriches the 'random' channel with the perfect meme at the perfect moment, every time.
Our honourable mention for this award goes to Stephen Umoh, who also received many nominations thanks to the fun and joy he brings to the workspace...
But the ultimate winner is Shovon Khan! Thanks for the smiles and laughs you share across our community, Shovon. The many votes you received shows what a wonderful difference you make.
The ‘Always There’ Award
This one celebrates the community member who shows up consistently, day after day, always eager to help, and always kind and responsive.
Honourable mentions for this one include Thristan Mendoza and Daniel F, who both dedicate an admirable amount of time into supporting fellow community members. Your efforts are noted and greatly appreciated!
And the award goes to Vivien S! Vivien is our Catalogue queen, and helps resolve hundreds of reports every single week. Her positive impact on the community will be very clear to any one who has spent any time on one of the Slack Workspaces. Thank you, Vivien, for all of your support.
The ‘Fastest Savior’ Award
Who is it that our community most rely on for fast help with their lyrics/tech/guideline queries? Let’s find out!
Thristan Mendoza and Vivien S also received many nominations for this award, alongside Divine, Jannik S., and Rishav who make up the rest of our honourable mentions.
The winner of the 'Fastest Savior' Award though goes to Daniel F. Daniel is our 'Connections Conductor' which mostly sees him supporting artists with their PRO subscriptions. As his winning of this award confirms, though, he helps many other users with many other matters too, and we're delighted to see him appreciated for his efforts!
Next up we have a couple of status-specific awards. Our community is built on values of warmth and openness and we love to see users of all statuses working alongside each other to get the most out of their lyrics contributions.
The ‘Contribution Bloomer’ Award
This award has been chosen by the Specialists specifically, to celebrate the Curators who are impressing with their engagement and dedication to submitting top quality lyrics.
Names mentioned include Julius Carlgren and Arty B, who were celebrated for the high quality they bring to their contributions, but it's ultimately Avaloy who the Specialists chose to award! As well as also being a high quality contributor, Avaloy is also an active part of the Slack community and we love having their voice in the community, congratulations!
The ‘Master Mentor’ Award
Our Rookies, Graduates, and Curators have chosen the winner of this award from our group of Specialists who help our staff members keep everything playing in tune.
Asked to nominate Specialists who’d been helpful in providing support and encouragement, our Curators mentioned many names, including Johnny, Paola, Luiz Ramirez, and Divine...
...And we have a tie for the winner! Congratulations, Jen and Valerie Dvache! All of our Specialists do a great job supporting our community, and Jen and Valerie place extra attention on mentoring new members in the Slack Channel. Their efforts have clearly been noticed and it's great to see them awarded today!
The ‘Slacktivity’ Award
There’s another group of users we need to speak a little more about, and they are our Community Conductors. They are experts in dedicated community areas and focus on providing support to community and staff members on Slack. They've casted their votes, and the result is a joint win for Nabin and Thristan. Huge congratulations to you both, and thank you for your dedication to keeping our Slack community humming.
Finally, we have a few awards to hand out for users nominated by our Musixmatch Staff team directly!
The ‘Curator Spotlight’ Award
This one goes to the Curator who has been most active in the mission systems this year, whilst also making sure to keep a close eye on the quality, as well as the quantity of their contributions.
Congratulations Ee Cheng! Your consistent activity in the contribution system, alongside your keen eye for quality has not gone unnoticed! Thank you for contributing as much as you do.
The ‘Specialist Spotlight’ Award
This award is for a Specialists who’s always diving into new projects, contributing nonstop, and generally keeping the momentum alive. There are many Specialists this award could go to, but after careful consideration, the Musixmatch Staff team has chosen to grant it to Olawale. Last year, Olawale became the first Specialist to reach a million points, and he's continued to be one of the most active contributors since then. He's always eager to take part in new projects and is generally a great support to the community and Musixmatch as a company. Thanks so much, Olawale, for all you do for this community!
The ‘Metadata Master’ Award
Some of you may not know, but there is an exclusive group of users who provide additional support with Publishing tasks related to musical meta data. We asked our internal Publishing Team to choose the winner for this award, and they’ve decided to base it upon the member with the best quality/quantity ratio. Honourable mentions go to Shovon Khan, and Jacob Alfa, but the Metadata Master award ultimately goes to Justin Lee. Congratulations and thank you for your special support!
And there we have it, the winners of our 2025 Musixmatch Community Awards!
All of you will receive a special badge which you can add to your Slack profiles to celebrate your amazing achievement!
We also want to give big kudos to our honourable mentions, and indeed every other member of the community who dedicates their time to making this the wonderful space it is. We weren't able to mention everyone who received nominations, so don't worry if you weren't named. Just know there were many votes and many community members receiving them, which just goes to show how greatly you're all appreciated!
And that brings 2025 to an end! Thank you for joining us on this journey; we’ll look forward to connecting with you all again in 2026!
