Broadcast app Live.me is offering New York City’s subway performers a global audience through a concert series and competition. They call it “the Grammy’s for the everyday New Yorker.” It started on January 10 and will end on the 28th of this month with a real, huge event.

Every day, millions of people are using the subway system in New York City, mostly to get to work and home again. And there are also thousands of musicians entertaining all these passengers. Even Miley Cyrus, Maroon 5, U2 or Linkin Park played gigs in the underground.

Street – and Subway – musicians are hard working women and men. They have to fight against the surrounding noise. And the short time, people usually take notice. All for getting very little attention and even less money.

The Live Underground x New York City contest

Now live broadcast app Live.me wants to give all the unknown underground artists both more attention and at least some of them a decent amount of money. Last week, performers set up on stages in five different subway stations throughout the city (Bryant Park, 23rd Street, Union Square, Grand Central and 86th Street), streaming their shows live through the app for a potential audience of 35 million people.

This week, the musicians will perform through the app in a competing contest from anywhere they usually play. Whether it is on the subway, a street corner, an event or a recording studio. At the end of the week, the five artists with the most views on Live.me will be featured at a pre-Grammy pop-up concert. So, not only will the Grammy be back in New York for the first time since 2003. But New York will also find a lot of winners in the “underground” (figuratively and literally).

The winner of the contest will get $10,000 in cash, the four runner-ups each $2,500. What an opportunity!