Sam Fender and Lewis Capaldi are Deezer NEXT's 2019 priority acts

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Sam Fender and Lewis Capaldi have been announced as Deezer NEXT's 2019 Global priority acts.

The 'Poundshop Kardashians' hitmaker - who is the winner of the BRITs Critics' Choice Award 2019 - has been selected alongside the 22-year-old singer to be the streaming service's champion's of emerging talent for this year.

Sam, 22, said: "Buzzing to be a part of Deezer next and super excited to share some new tunes with you all!"

The 2019 artists of the NEXT programme will receive 12 months of dedicated support from Deezer's Artist Marketing and Editorial teams, which includes playlisting and creative marketing campaigns, involving special content and fan events.

During his year in the UK Deezer NEXT programme, Lewis - who was this year's winner of MTV PUSH: Ones to Watch 2019 - experienced a 110 per cent increase in streams with his latest track, 'Someone You Loved', recently hitting the top 10 UK singles chart so he's delighted to be the first artist to make the step up from local to global artist.

He said: "I've been absolutely blown away by the support of Deezer since I've started releasing music, from coming to a number of my live shows to choosing me as one of their UK Deezer NEXT artists for last year. So to be told that they've now chosen me as their Deezer NEXT Global artist for this year is a huge honour and I'm massively looking forward to the year ahead! Have had thousands of messages of people discovering my tunes over on Deezer so am absolutely buzzing about the year ahead!"

Alexander Holland, Chief Content and Product Officer at Deezer commented: "As a streaming platform we have the privilege of connecting artists all over the world with their fans. We also have the opportunity to help talented artists take the magic step that takes them from being a local gem to an international phenomenon. We've done that journey several times before with artists like Rag'n'Bone Man, Anne Marie and Jorja Smith and I'm very excited to add Lewis Capaldi and Sam Fender to the list. Each of them has a unique sound and they represent exactly the kind of artists that make us crank up the volume in the office".