Over breakfast in Budapest, Miss Kaninna is enjoying letting the sun hit her skin, a brief moment of reprieve in the middle of what has been another whirlwind international tour.
The six-time ARIA nominee has been previewing her next chapter to ravenous audiences in the UK and Europe, with headline shows in Glasgow, Dublin, and London perfectly lining up alongside massive festival performances in the UK and in Ireland, where she reunited with former tourmates Kneecap at Féile an Phobail — the country’s biggest community arts festival.
While it could be easy to become overwhelmed and fall victim to the chaos around her, Kaninna has instead taken deep breathes and stepped forward with confidence and self-awareness in equal measure.
“Being a new artist, I’m very careful about how I want to be represented online,” she explains. “With this [new] mixtape, I think I have represented the music, the brand and myself very correctly. It’s very close to the music I want to continue to make and build upon, as a genre of my own. It’s something I can continue to work towards.”
Following on from her commanding debut EP project KANINNA, the release of her new BLACKPRINT mixtape is as much of an expansion of sound as it is a moment for Kaninna to demonstrate her evolution as a songwriter, producer, and visionary.
Built on freestyles that have since been transformed into fleshed-out musical moments, driven by a full spectrum of emotion and passion, BLACKPRINT has been a labour of love for Kaninna and her team, featuring talented producers Lucy Blomkamp (6LACK, Mallrat) and Nikodimos (Hiatus Kaiyote, Genesis Owusu).
Flashes of frustration and attitude are woven together with moments of vulnerability and tenderness that newer listeners may not necessarily expect from the firebrand artist behind hard-hitting songs like “Pinnacle Bitch” and “Blak Britney”.
Love Music?
Get your daily dose of everything happening in Australian/New Zealand music and globally.
As Kaninna explains, being able to present different facets of her creativity has been crucial. “This is a sound that I’ve been trying to create for the last couple of years, really. It steered away from that path slightly when I first released ‘Blak Britney’.
“Being in the city, not really having access to producers… I was just making music and trying to just keep up with how crazy my life was. Now, it’s good to be able to just sit back and create the music I’ve wanted to with time, rather than just pumping songs out because I’ve needed to. This feels very purposeful.”
Of her working relationships with both Nikodimos and Lucy Blomkamp, Kaninna bases their success on the fact that they operate with the same mindset: get in, establish the central vibe, and get to work.
“Although they are quite different producers, they do work quite similarly. They’re very focused,” she says. “I just want to make art, I want to make something that feels good.
“I’ve been gaining some success in the industry, and sometimes people look at [making music with] me like an opportunity, rather than actually creating and thinking about the music. Working with Niko and Lucy has really solidified the way I like to work. I like to work quickly and I like to work in a way where I’m non-emotional and yet so emotional at the same time.
“We will hang out for 10-15 minutes, talk about everything, and then only talk about work for four or five hours and get a whole demo together. They’re both so down to earth and really love having fun. They don’t take themselves too seriously, which I really like. Lucy and Niko are both such organic creatives, it was really refreshing to work with them.”
The impact of Kaninna’s music and her electrifying live presence speaks for itself.
Following our conversation, she became the first-ever Aboriginal MC to play Sziget Festival – a perfect way to lead up to a triumphant return to Australia, where an almost sold-out run supporting BLACKPRINT awaits.
“A lot of these songs have been waiting to be played, they’ve been waiting to be out for a while now,” she says. “I work pretty fast and I move on pretty quickly but with these songs, I’m really glad to have them in the catalogue to go back to constantly. I make so much music and some of the songs get played live and they never get released. I’m so ADHD like that, I switch up my tastes a lot.”
Navigating her way through an ever-changing industry, one that pulls and expects so much from the artists themselves, the last year in particular has been a formative one for Kaninna. As her profile within the Australian industry has risen, so too has the responsibility she feels to remain authentic, unapologetic, and real when it comes to how she steps in a room, shows up for her people and for those who may feel like their voices can’t be heard.
The BLACKPRINT mixtape is a lesson in overcoming, achieving and embracing one’s own power. It’s also a lesson in letting the joy in; the Kaninna we hear on this project is a woman empowered, yes, but also a woman who is comfortable in balancing softness with the raw intensity audiences love about her.
As she simply puts, it’s a discovery in free will. “A lot of artists and people in the industry have a mindset of: how do we hop on a trend? How do we make this big? I think that the biggest songs in the world, the most important ones, were never made to do that,” she says. “They were made to get an emotion down on paper and record that, so that people could feel it too and be seen. Or they were songs that could speak on an issue that needed to be spoken on.”
“Someone gave me some really good advice just after ‘Blak Britney’ came out,” she remembers. “I was thinking that I needed to release another ‘Blak Britney’. I had caught the wave and I was focused on how to keep going, that if I didn’t go viral again it was all going to fall apart. I spoke to this big artist and she was like, ‘As long as you’re having fun when you’re releasing new music and you can stand back, look at it and be proud of what you’ve done… You know you’re creating art.’” That was just so fucking true.
“Even if you don’t like the song, it’s about having a relationship with that song, knowing that it’s not only doing something for you but also for other people.
“‘Dawg in Me’, for instance. I love that song but it’s not my favourite anymore and I don’t really like doing it, just because I’ve done it for so long. I took it out of the set and every show I’ve done in Europe, people are screaming an encore for ‘Dawg in Me’. It’s done so much for other people. I think that’s something I’m coming to terms with a lot more. As an artist, I’m around that music a lot and I listen to the music a lot, but it might be someone’s first time hearing it.”
Looking ahead to what this BLACKPRINT era can potentially grow into, the wheels are already turning for Kaninna.
Exposure to more audiences internationally is feeding into how she is approaching her live shows at home. The validation received on the other side of the world has only added fuel to the fire that has been burning bright since her powerful breakthrough year.
Continuing to grow as an artist and performer go hand in hand, and with the opportunity to grow BLACKPRINT throughout the rest of this year, she’s ready to push herself further than before.
“What I am excited about is being able to create a show that is high production, high quality, with really talented musicians,” she enthuses. “Doing it in front of 1,500 people, 800 people, 500 people, whatever. It’s a show where people can come and feel like they are part of something.”
View this post on Instagram
“I get to dictate what people will experience and the safety of the space,” she adds. “I’ve gone to so many gigs where women of colour and queer people are not protected, they’re not safe. Although I am going to try my hardest to keep people safe, what I’m excited for is providing a space for people to come and connect with each other on shared values and experiences.”
“There are so many of us who have the same feelings about what is going on in the world, and have the same feelings about each other. Yet it’s really isolating too in the world of the internet, where we are on our phones all the time. We don’t get the opportunity to meet each other. I’m keen to create an environment where people are going to be able to connect and communicate over music. Changing the world is the goal, and music is the vessel.”
Miss Kaninna’s BLACKPRINT mixtape is out now via Soul Has No Tempo / AWAL Recordings. Find out more about her Australian tour here.
