The winners of the 2018 Hit Like A Girl contest from China performed on the main stage at NAMM 2019. And as if performing at the largest music convention in the world with the best players on the planet casually walking around, these young women played one after another in rapid succession on a house drum set with no time to adjust hardware, swap out gear, or do a sound check. And they killed it.
Eva Lang is the Child Age Group champion, Hanna Piao (in the video above ) is the Teen Age Group champion, and Yutong Chen is the Adult Age Group champion.

Hit Like A Girl winners from China performed at NAMM 2019
Presented by Hit Like A Girl in conjunction with the 9Beats drum schools in China, HLAG China generated 750 entries, 8 million video views and 18 million online votes. The final phase of the contest was judged by international drumming icons Anika Nilles, Didi Negron, Aaron Spears, Lindsay Artkop, and Dom Famularo. The Champions’ prize packages included a one-week trip to visit Los Angeles for the NAMM performance, as well as tours of Musician’s Institute, Drum Channel, Remo, and DW.
The new Hit Like A Girl international drumming contest website is now live, and the contest has expanded its offering of professional critique for entrants to include both drumming and video production skills with Hit Like A Girl’s new Power Pack Preview.
The new program expands the functionality of HLAG’s popular Power Pack, offered in collaboration with Hit Like A Girl sponsors DrumChannel and Drumeo. Preview includes a professional critique of a submitted video by an experienced artist/educator with specific comments and advice on performance and overall presentation. The service is free but membership in the selected educational website is required.
The contest opens on March 1. This year’s age categories include Under 13, 14-17, 18-39, and 40+.
The Hit Like A Girl contest for female drummers and percussionists was founded in 2012 by Phil Hood (Drum!), David Levine (Full Circle Management), and Mindy Abovitz-Monk (Tom Tom). Now in its eighth year, the Hit Like A Girl Contest has had more than 4,000 participants from 50 countries and has reached nearly 100 million online impressions.