Listen up, Fort Worth! Welcome to The Soundcheck, a biweekly music column keeping you in the loop on what’s happening across the Tarrant music scene.
What do you get when you combine a law firm with a passion for musicians and a desperate desire to support local music venues? Enter Jambaloo, presented by the Mullen & Mullen Music Project.
With music offerings and events all year long, Jambaloo has already made waves in the North Texas music community since its inception last year. In 2026, Jambaloo stepped forward with a new level of dedication to local musicians with the Jambaloo Music Prize.
This annual award will recognize the best independent full-length album by a local artist in 2025, and comes with a $20,000 prize and the opportunity to record a professionally produced single with four-time Grammy award-winning engineer and producer Tre Nagella.
Of the three finalists selected out of hundreds of submissions, two hail from Panther City: Matthew McNeal and Paul Schalda.
I was able to sit down with both artists a few days after finalists were revealed. The energy coming off of the big announcement was palpable and carried throughout our time together with a buzzing energy.
When asked how it feels to be recognized as finalists in this inaugural competition, both were quick to point to the Fort Worth music scene.
“Nice! It feels really good!” Schalda said with a smile.
McNeal agreed. “(This competition) shines a beautiful light on the music community we come from in Fort Worth.”
McNeal, signed to Fort Worth-based label Matte Black Sound Company, makes the finals with his fifth studio album High Lonesome.
“This album is about community, connectivity, love and loss,” McNeal said. “I am a conduit for what I am inspired by. Love and loss are powerful feelings on their own but are even more powerful when they are brought together.”
Schalda, signed to Dallas-based Skylark Soul Co. / An Eastwood Music Group Label, qualified with his debut solo record Lately, recorded at Fort Worth’s Niles City Sound. During our chat, Schalda was a little more hesitant to pin down the themes and intentions behind this album.
“A lot of my past music was very personal and straightforward,” he said. “I wanted to get away from that this round. (My music) is just words, people should make of them what they want to.”
Schalda and McNeal readily expressed their gratitude to the Jambaloo team and the Mullen & Mullen law firm founders for their support of the North Texas music scene.
“I am so grateful to be a part of the music conversation in North Texas,” Schalda said. “They are doing beautiful work for the music community, making sure artists get paid.”
“Jambaloo will be in the conversation of the DFW music scene forever now,” McNeal said.
“I am just so happy to be here at the start,” he said. “Fort Worth is such a special place. You can’t help but want to bring people here. It just feels like home.”
The Jambaloo Music Prize showcase and awards will be June 6 at Dallas’ Longhorn Ballroom. General admission tickets are $35. All of the ticket revenue will be donated to Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts’ advisory board and Amplified Minds, a nonprofit providing free mental healthcare to local creatives.
You can learn more about Jambaloo, the Mullen & Mullen Music Project and all the live music-based offerings they present on the Jambaloo website.
Hailey Green (she/they) is a live production professional based in North Texas. She serves as production manager for the Fort Worth African American Roots Music Festival as well as on faculty in the University of Texas at Arlington Department of Theatre Arts & Dance.
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