Back in 2021, you might have struggled to recognise . “I wore a hazmat suit, and I was fucking injecting people with shit,” she tells CLASH. What could be a scene from The Substance was, in fact, the rapper’s daily routine, working as a mental health nursing student during the pandemic.

As is the power of her ever-articulate tracks, a couple of underground gigs quickly spun into three nominations, an award for best Hip-Hop EP at the 2025 Australian Independent Music Awards for her debut, ‘Kaninna’ and a 2025 support tour with . “I feel confident in things that I can do well, and I know that I’m good at,” she tells CLASH.

Fresh off the back of her first EU/UK headliner tour, the proud Yorta Yorta, Dja Dja Wurrung, Kalkadoon and Yirendali woman sits down with CLASH to talk about her upcoming EP, ‘BLACKPRINT’, the experience of reclaiming her place centre-stage and pressure to make a change back home.

You’ve just come off the back of your first EU/UK headliner tour. How are you feeling?

I was very nervous for this tour. It’s pretty ego-boosting being able to sell home shows so quickly, but coming over here is pretty daunting, you know. I was worried that I wasn’t going to be able to sell tickets. So to be able to sell out the shows that I did is very humbling, and I feel good about it. I was also quite excited to get in front of people – I like live shows a lot more than curating an online presence, so doing a headline tour and festivals was just super fun. I feel super fulfilled and happy that I was able to share my story.

Talk to me about your reunion with Kneecap at the Féile festival. What is your relationship like?

The first time I met the boys, they came down to Australia, and we did the tour together, but we didn’t really know each other. But by the end of the shows, we were very close, and then a few months later they asked me to come all the way over here and do like one of their big tours.

They had seen Australia and where I’m from, and we’d both been to the UK, to the land that has taken everything from both of our people, but I had never been to Ireland before. I’d heard about the resistance and why it’d been there, though I’d never been to Belfast. When I finally went, it was closing the circle on this shared experience of meeting each other’s families and stuff.

I got to meet, you know, the local pub owners who lived up the road from them, some of their aunties and uncles and see where they eat fish and chips and shit. I tried chips and curry sauce. It was bussin. When we were at the pub, they were playing the fiddle, and Greta Thunberg was there, and she was singing. It was like a fever dream. I felt like if I was to pay for a Kneecap experience, this would be it.

It sounds like there is a real kinship between you both. Where does that come from?

I think we both give each other a lot of hope. The Brits have worked really hard at trying to label what they’re doing as certain things, so the oppressed feel divided and individualised.

Whereas, when we come together, and you kind of push past the smokescreen, it’s actually not the excuse that they’re telling us. It’s not about racism or religion; it’s actually just because they want our resources.

I think that it’s really powerful to push back. People will always try and say, ‘Oh, it’s complicated in Belfast, oh it’s complicated about Aboriginal rights,’ but it’s really fucking not. It’s about power and money. It’s about who owns the land and who has the right to the land.

In BLACKPRINT you write: “My pen be a gun.” How did you know that being an artist was the way you wanted to share your story?

My whole family are performers and singers, and also very political. So, it wasn’t actually like, ‘Oh, I’m gonna be a singer, I’m gonna be political.’ I never thought that politics was going to be a part of my music in such a big way. As a kid, I just wanted to be like Britney Spears, like Beyoncé and the Pussy Cat Dolls, and they’re not political at all.

I remember performing music as a kid – I liked musical theatre – and I was always put at the back. It was constantly like, while I know I’m good at this, because you’re black, because you’re Aboriginal, you have to be at the back, not sing anything too political. And then it’s like, well fuck you, I want to be the one in the front, the one that gets attention.

What was that experience like, the first time you got to be centre stage?

I was working in hospitality at the time, at a couple different bars, and a guy who ran one of the bars had his own band, and because it was lockdown, there were no gigs. A couple of underground gigs started to pop up, and he put on a show and was like, ‘Why don’t you come and open with me?’ I was like, ‘Well, I only have one song that I’ve written,’ and he said, ‘Well, we’ll just do all covers then.’

I did Naughty Girl by Beyoncé, Tyrone by Erykah Badu and some Sneaky Sound System. It was so random, but it was sick. There were no other girls doing music like that in Tasi, and no one was rapping either. So it was a pretty infectious feeling.

You’ve credited your mum and your nan previously for your fearlessness. Are there times when you don’t feel like that?

For me, confidence is this thing that I can turn on and off. There are lots of times when I’m out of my comfort zone, but then you just kind of have to fuck up and fucking do it; otherwise, you look stupid. I’m scared of people thinking that I don’t know what I’m doing and underestimating me. As a woman, and especially as a black woman, people always underestimate me.

I don’t like jumping off heights or going to scary movies, but if somebody asked me to do something and I wanted to do it, I would. I’m not gonna get sweet-talked into eating a spicey chili or something stupid, but if someone was like fucking go up there and sing, I’d be like, all right. Or if someone’s being a fuckhead, I don’t care who you are, I’m gonna say something.

That fearlessness really comes through in Mob Ties. What were you trying to convey through the track?

It started as different freestyles which I was writing in one week, so the same themes kept coming up. We have mob tribes all over the country, so I wanted to be able to convey that we’re all one Mob, that we’re in this together and celebrate that.

But the song’s supposed to be kind of an attack on people who outright disrespect the culture, try to infiltrate the culture and harm the culture. We have loads of non-indigenous Australians pretending to have connections or speak for the mob.

It’s kind of dog-whistling a little bit as well, because you know we should be able to say shit behind white people’s backs. Like, fuck, we’re so excluded from everything else. So there’s a lot of lyrics only mob really understand. Other people kind of get it, but you don’t really understand it. I think that’s what’s really good about it. A lot of mob slang.

How does it feel to constantly describe your experience to all the people asking you to share your story?

It’s like trying to describe a dog to someone who’s never seen one. Unless you have been in Australia, lived there and know Aboriginal people, you really can’t fathom the history and the experience. Then I have to come over here and promote my music, which seems so irrelevant. I feel like I have an opportunity to speak about things that are not music-related, and gain allies in the white and black communities here so that they listen not only to my music, but to other Aboriginal creatives and politicians. Having my human rights is the goal, and music is the vessel.

That sounds like an incredible amount of pressure to place on yourself.

I cried at Boomtown because I was like, ‘Fuck – imagine if I came all the way over here and didn’t say enough’. People always say, ‘Oh, good, you’re doing a good job,’ but I’m actually not doing because when I go home, somebody is still gonna die. It’s not like I came over here and changed the world, but maybe out of the thousands of people I’ve reached, ten people actually read something.

What would you say to people who shy away from using their platforms to advocate for others?

It must be nice having the privilege.

Tell us about the upcoming Australia tour, and what’s next after that.

I’m really excited – it feels like my first time again. I haven’t had a chance to perform these songs in front of these people before, and a lot of them have been watching me since Black Britney. A lot of people are like, ‘Oh, your music is so different?’ and I’m like, ‘Yeah!’ I’m just trying to figure it out. I’m writing an album at the moment, and I’m developing my sound a lot more.

On tour, I’ve got some incredible opening acts. I like to dictate my show a lot, so it’s really annoying when you go to a festival and you’re not allowed to have the visuals up. I like to create a show where I get to create the story and a space where people can come and feel safe and be part of music, of something, that doesn’t feel too judgemental.