Jorja Smith, Nemzzz and Beabadoobee head home to headline new Spotify series

The first run of 'Hometown' lands next month with Jorja Smith opening the series in Walsall on 6 September, followed by Nemzzz in Manchester on 12 September and then Beabadoobee in London on 17 September. Top listeners of each artist will be invited to attend in person before the shows are made available as exclusive concert films.

The format is a way of bringing fans closer to artists by returning to the environments that shaped them, claims Spotify, rather than staging shows in places disconnected from their backgrounds. Alongside the performances, the streaming platform is working with each artist on community projects in their home cities, which includes donations to local youth groups.

Smith, who releases her new album What Are The Odds this week, will play Walsall, where she wrote and recorded some of her earliest material. "It's where my love of music began and the people, experiences and sense of community there continue to influence my creativity today," Smiths says.

Rapper Nemzzz, whose album Locked In is released on 4 September, heads to Manchester for the second date, and Beabadoobee closes the series in the UK capital on 17 September, ahead of her new record Pylon, released the following day. The West London-born artist points to the area as formative for her music and her sense of identity: "London's where I started finding my people, making music, playing tiny shows and figuring out what I wanted to do," she explains. The Avenues Youth Project in E10 – a purpose-built community facility established in 1979 – will benefit from her involvement: "It's also really cool that we're able to give something back to the community with The Avenues and support young people locally, that part feels really important to me," she commented.