This is The Guardian.

Today, White Island is paying artists of basic income, with no strings attached.

My name's Lewis Young. I'm 27 years old and based in Dublin and I'm a musician.

Ever since he left university with a music degree, Lewis has been trying to make a living from his passion.

I'm primarily a session musician, so I play for artists and bands, but I also do composition work and musical direction work

and that music that you're listening to in the background is one of his pieces

I play a number of instruments so primarily keyboard and saxophone and guitar and but I grew up playing

classical violin and I'm on a gig tomorrow where I'm

playing lots of traditional art whistle.

It's not always a glamorous life, but he's always been willing to do whatever it takes to keep making music.

I do a lot of weddings, I do a lot of corporate gigs, things that aren't the most artistically fulfilling, but they do keep me in my house.

And then in 2022, the Irish government threw him a lifeline, when he was one of 2,000 Irish artists selected for a special pilot scheme.

For three years, he received 325 euros every week from the state to do with as he pleased.

Suddenly he didn't have to play those weddings anymore, or the soul-zapping corporate gigs.

Yeah, I actually was doing the maths before this call and it's about 50 gigs a year.

So it's about 50 extra days of work a year that I got back to practice or to experiment on

things to actually make art, to write songs to compose.

Wow, that's a lot.

There's really a lot, isn't it?

I mean, bad news for the couples of Ireland who wanted you to play your whistle at their wedding.

I'd say they're both delighted.

For Lewis, the regular income changed everything.

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