Matt Proxy has won the first Rising Star competition hosted by PlaqueBoyMax, receiving $25,000 and access to Red Bull Music Studios in Los Angeles. The Minneapolis rapper was named the winner at the November 8 finale at The Belasco, closing a three-day competition built around creating music, performing under time pressure and holding an audience’s attention both in the room and online.
Six emerging artists spent the weekend in a shared house as viewers followed their work. The format was not simply a sequence of performances: contestants were asked to navigate a 90-minute songwriting-and-performance challenge, a label meeting and a timed styling assignment at Wasteland. Matt Proxy, Tana, Raud, Hawsa, Boohavinn and Earfzilla all reached the final-stage portion of the program.
The result makes the show’s priorities clear. PlaqueBoyMax emphasized stage presence in his judging, while online voting contributed to each artist’s standing. That combination placed Rising Star somewhere between a live showcase, a creative boot camp and a streamer-led community event. It also gave contestants a challenge that goes beyond recording a strong song: they had to communicate a point of view quickly, make choices under constraints and turn casual viewers into active supporters.
A final shaped by a narrow online-voting race
Heading into the final day, Tana led the rankings with 13 stars. Matt Proxy was directly behind on 12. Both artists later led the voting after their performances, leaving the finale with a genuinely close competitive frame rather than an obvious runaway winner.
PlaqueBoyMax then asked the room for its response before announcing Matt Proxy as the winner. The finale was available through Twitch and YouTube, bringing the online audience into an event that also had an in-person crowd at The Belasco.
That is an important distinction in a format like this. Online voting gives viewers a visible role in a contestant’s trajectory, but it is not identical to a conventional audience tally. The supplied details say voting helped determine rankings; they do not establish that a vote count alone selected the winner. The final decision also included PlaqueBoyMax’s judgment and a live-room reaction. In short, Rising Star used participation as part of the contest’s machinery without presenting it as a purely automated popularity contest.
For emerging artists, that structure has practical consequences. A contestant needs music that travels through a stream, a performance that connects in a venue and enough clarity of identity for viewers to remember them after a short run of episodes and challenges. The program’s use of a shared house further turns the creation process into part of the viewing experience. Fans were not only watching finished songs; they were following the pressures and decisions surrounding the work.
What the challenges were designed to test
The 90-minute songwriting and performance task was the clearest compressed test of creative execution. A short deadline can reveal how an artist prioritizes: whether they start with a hook, lyrics, arrangement, rehearsal or the visual and physical side of performance. It does not necessarily measure every element of an artist’s long-term ability, but it does put decisiveness and adaptability under a bright spotlight.
The label meeting added a different kind of professional test. An artist meeting music-industry figures must be able to explain their direction, catalog and ambitions as clearly as they perform. Meanwhile, the timed styling task at Wasteland treated presentation as a practical piece of a public-facing music career. Styling does not substitute for songs, but it can shape first impressions and help an artist’s performance read distinctly on a stage or camera feed.
Celebrity guests Wiz Khalifa, Coi Leray and Lil Yachty offered critiques during the weekend. Their participation gave contestants feedback from artists with established public careers, though the information available does not specify the precise guidance given to individual participants. What is clear is that the competition was built to expose rising performers to several forms of scrutiny at once: peer comparison, guest critiques, viewer reaction and a live finale.
Matt Proxy entered with music already in circulation
Matt Proxy did not arrive as an artist without released material. His June project, trojan horse, included features from Current Joys and fakemink. His music combines live instrumentation with the hip-hop influences he grew up with in Minneapolis, a blend that gives useful context to why a performance-centered competition could suit him.
Live instrumentation refers to music made with played instruments rather than relying exclusively on programmed sounds or sampled production. It can mean different things in practice, from recorded instrumental parts to a band-oriented feel in an arrangement. The available information does not detail the exact musical setup of Matt Proxy’s Rising Star set, so it would be a leap to claim a particular instrument or stage configuration. But the description of his recorded work points to an approach that reaches beyond a single fixed sonic template.
He had also recently performed trojan horse at a headline show in New York for an audience familiar with the project. At the Rising Star finale, Matt Proxy asked the crowd to sit down for a tribute to his late sister. That moment placed a personal gesture inside a competition whose stated emphasis included stage presence. It is a reminder that presence is not merely movement, volume or crowd-command; it can also be the ability to change a room’s energy with intention.
The $25,000 prize has an obvious immediate value, while studio access may be equally meaningful as a working resource. Studio access means an artist has access to a professional recording environment, though no details were provided about the duration, scheduling, production personnel or services included. It should not be treated as a guarantee of a release or a recording deal. It does, however, give the winner a defined opportunity to continue developing music in Los Angeles following the event.
A streamer-led route to music discovery
Rising Star also illustrates how livestreaming can act as an entry point for music discovery. Rather than treating broadcasts solely as promotion around a finished release, the competition made the creation and evaluation process into the content itself. Viewers could observe contestants throughout the shared-house weekend, then see the format resolve in a venue performance.
PlaqueBoyMax’s own role extends beyond staging the contest. He is nominated for Best Music Streamer at the 2026 Streamer Awards alongside DDG, Bishu and AriAtHome. The nomination places this event within a larger moment for music-centered livestreaming, where hosts can create forums for artists, fan participation and live discussion rather than simply broadcasting games or reacting to releases.
That broader shift does not erase the value of traditional shows, releases or direct audience-building. Instead, it creates another route through which an artist can be seen. In Matt Proxy’s case, the format connected an existing catalog, a recent headline performance, competitive challenges and a streamed finale into one highly visible weekend.
Music competition narratives can sometimes flatten artists into a single victorious moment. The more useful reading here is that Matt Proxy’s win follows work already in motion: a June project, collaborations, a stated musical blend and a New York headline appearance. Rising Star added a significant new platform, prize money and studio access to that foundation. It also gave the event’s audience a compact look at how he operates when the work, the vote and the final performance all matter at once.
For more on how streaming culture and public narratives can shape conversations around music, see the discussion around stadium shows and the “comeback” label.
