7 photosRenzo took a leap of faith years ago and hit the SDFTP open mic stage with nothing but passion and a guitar. He went on to perform on The Voice in front of John Legend, Michael Buble, Kelsea Ballerini and Adam Levine.
History · Grants and round twos
2025
The prizes got real and the invitations came back.
Grammy week King of the Aux carried more than $5,000 pledged by Unfound Music, and three winners took home grants: Yahusha Kalev, Josh Moreland, and Diwan Smith.
Rolling Loud invited the brand back for a second year. A Los Globos open mic doubled as the qualifier, winner Datboy Kalifa performed inside the festival, and co founder Tariq Cherif came through. The six year anniversary Pass The Aux at Create Music Studios marked nearly 300 events hosted.
- Grammy week grants
- $5,000+
- Rolling Loud
- Year two
- Events hosted
- Nearly 300
- Six years
- Oct 19
The moments that mattered
2025, as it happened.
Ranked against the rest of 2025, so the founding era competes on its own terms instead of against the years that came after.
7 photos
The Rolling Loud x Something Dope open mic at Los Globos sold out, with one artist earning a spot to perform inside the festival that weekend. The recap reel pulled over 144,000 plays, and Rolling Loud cofounder Tariq Cherif pulled up in person.
7 photosCari won the crown over 60 plus artists and became Queen of the Aux with a final round song about losing her siblings. The room was in tears when the votes came in.
@cari.the.artist
9 photosYoshi Vintage, a partially deaf hip hop artist from Flint, Michigan, won the SDFTP x Rhyme Fest open mic at Catch One. The prize was real: a performance at Rhyme Fest at the LA Memorial Coliseum on a lineup with Raekwon, Ghostface Killah, DJ Quik and Xzibit.
@yoshivintage
10 photosTitus Makin drove from Arizona to Hollywood for Pass The Aux and won the whole King of the Aux battle against about 60 artists. The song he won with dropped the very next day.
@titusmakin
The full year
Everything else from 2025.
27 moments in total, every one verified against the post it came from.
January 23 · grammy week
On Instagram ↗King of the Aux: $5,000 in prizes for Grammy week 2025
The 2025 Grammy week Pass The Aux at Create Music Group stages a King of the Aux battle with over $5,000 in prizes pledged by Unfound Music. A second event brings an open mic to Grandmaster Recorders the same week.
January 30 · grammy week
On Instagram ↗Three grant winners crowned
Grammy week 2025 ends with three artists receiving grants toward artist services of their choice: Yahusha Kalev in first, Josh Moreland in second, and Diwan Smith in third. Unfound pledged the prize pool for the top three.
@Yahusha Kalev, @Josh Moreland, @Diwan Smith
February 3 · grammy week
On Instagram ↗Private Grammy celebration at Grandmaster Recorders
The guest list only night caps the 2025 Grammy season. [Chris Brown claim retracted by Jordan, do not use]
@Jesse LeProtti, @Plaquey Chan, @Maiwand
February 21 · pass the aux
On Instagram ↗Chloe Hart had reached a point of zero motivation in her art until she experienced Pass The Aux in OKC, where the people she met inspired her to go harder than ever. Her story became the community's favorite proof of what one room can do.
@Chloe Hart, @the_oaka
March 2 · open mic
On Instagram ↗Update on the Myles Smith story: after his encore night on the SDFTP stage, Myles won a BRIT Award and locked in a tour with Ed Sheeran. The team called it the night everyone in the room knew he was a star.
@mylessmithuk
March 5 · groovy
On Instagram ↗Groovy goes weekly at Grandmaster Recorders
Something Groovy For The People opens a weekly Saturday residency at Studio 71 inside Grandmaster Recorders starting March 8, 2025. The night celebrates disco, funk, and soul with live performances and a DJ set by Maiwand.
@Maiwand
March 11 · milestone
On Instagram ↗Rolling Loud round two, plus a golden ticket
Rolling Loud invites Something Dope back for a second festival open mic, and this time a Los Globos open mic night doubles as a qualifier where one artist wins a performance inside the festival. Co founder Tariq Cherif pulls up to the collab himself.
March 16 · open mic
On Instagram ↗Datboy Kalifa won the sold out Rolling Loud x SDFTP open mic and earned the right to perform on the Something Dope stage inside Rolling Loud California the next day. From a Wednesday open mic to a festival stage in four days.
@datboykalifa4
April 7 · groovy
On Instagram ↗Groovy runs it back
The first Groovy Saturdays land so well the team runs them back week after week through spring 2025. Free entry with RSVP keeps the dance floor full under the disco lights.
May 2 · open mic
On Instagram ↗At the Chicago open mic, Shawn made a beat live on the spot, sang on it, then pulled a rapper out of the audience to freestyle over it. Three artists, one improvised record, in front of a live crowd.
@shawngetoffmylawn
May 8 · open mic
On Instagram ↗For the second annual Chicago open mic, host Jeremy Hecht offered to shout out his favorite performer on The Bigger Picture, the podcast he does alongside Elliott Wilson and DJ Hed. Coastal media reach as an open mic prize.
@jeremy_hecht
May 15 · alumni
On Instagram ↗Benson Price Jones: three years to King of the Aux
Benson Price Jones started at Something Dope open mics, called his Peppermint Club set one of the top three moments of his life, and kept showing up for three years. He won King of the Aux over 70 plus artists and earned co signs from Grammy winning engineers along the way.
@Benson Price Jones
May 17 · open mic
On Instagram ↗At The Promontory in Chicago, host Jeremy Hecht asked artists to turn on their phone lights whenever something he said resonated, and one by one the room lit up. He then surprised Sifu Flame with a performance slot on the spot.
@sifu_flame00, @jeremy_hecht
June 27 · alumni
On Instagram ↗GenWunner: from open mic to national tour
GenWunner performed Pokemon Go at a Something Dope open mic in 2023 and made the entire room lose it, catching the attention of founder Jordan Saint-Pierre, who began managing him. Nearly 100 shows later he has sold out rooms across the country and fans raised close to $20,000 for his first music video.
@GenWunner
July 2 · king of the aux
On Instagram ↗SafeTravels came from Virginia and won King of the Aux at Create Music, going head to head with over 100 other artists in packed studio rooms. The biggest field the competition had seen to that point.
@safetravelscc
August 13 · open mic
On Instagram ↗For a Rhyme Fest week giveaway at a Burbank pizza shop, two artists arrived within ten minutes and about 20 seconds apart. Radio host Bootleg Kev fed them both, let them rap for him and gave them his contact info, while another artist drove 45 minutes just to be present knowing he had likely lost.
@bootlegkev, @mv.viche, @multifacetedmonster
September 5 · king of the aux
On Instagram ↗Luthersson came all the way from Iceland and won King of the Aux on the strength of his music alone. The team framed it as proof a sound can travel anywhere in the world and still win the room.
@luthersson
October 6 · for the ladies
On Instagram ↗Five years of For The Ladies
A five year retrospective names the full original cast: host Tatyana, DJ Drea Faux Real, and Flyana Boss performing. What began inside a friend group has exploded into one of the brand's longest running formats.
@Flyana Boss, @Tatyana, @Drea Faux Real, @Cami Petyn
October 6 · open mic
On Instagram ↗The origin story: the first Something Dope event drew about 100 people to a Hollywood Blvd venue in 2019, and at event two, friends of the team Flyana Boss performed together for the first time and went crazy. Years later Flyana Boss blew up worldwide.
@flyanaboss, @ramajeroc, @musicbymikeparker
October 7 · early days
On Instagram ↗The burger restaurant era
A retrospective reveals that right after the pandemic the only option for events was Black Star Burger on Fairfax. The team threw so many insane events there that many guests never realized it was a burger restaurant.
October 31 · milestone
On Instagram ↗Six year anniversary at Create Music Studios
The sixth anniversary Pass The Aux brings hosts, a live crew, and a room of special guests to Create Music Studios. By this point the brand counts nearly 300 events hosted for music artists.
The archive keeps growing