In Australia, breaking through usually means breaking out first.
Artists like The Kid LAROI and Lithe didn’t blow up here until they were already taking off overseas. Melbourne-born, Australian-Indian artist SHRETA knows this all too well.
After years of slow-burning recognition locally, she’s bet everything on Los Angeles — and the gamble’s beginning to pay off.
In late May, she released her self-titled debut EP through renowned industry figure Ty Baisden’s Playbook Distribution, longtime manager and business partner of Grammy-winning R&B titan Brent Faiyaz.
While Australia’s mostly oblivious, SHRETA has received unwavering support from the US industry for a while, also becoming MajorStage’s first international guest and gaining coverage from Audiomack.
“SHRETA’s an amazing artist. When the stars align, she’ll be well-positioned to make a strong impact on the music world.” —Ty Baisden
Growing up a second-generation Australian-Indian, SHRETA’s always had a unique perspective. Carnatic music, a traditional Indian music genre closely associated with Hindu, blared inside her family home, and she sang along. In Carnatic music, the voice is used as an instrument, replacing those used in classical Indian music. “You can hear it in my melodies. Anyone who listens to Indian music will understand why ‘Messy’ is so catchy, and understand the layering and vision behind that,” she tells Rolling Stone AU/NZ.
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A natural performer, she remembers singing by 3 and performing on stage for the first time at 5.
“If you ask anyone in my life from then, they’d say, ‘SHRETA would not stop obsessing about being an artist and being on stage and being a singer and being a star.’ And that was all I wanted when I was a kid,” she recalls. “I always knew I wanted to do this.”
Growing up, her curiosity was sparked upon hearing Indian samples in popular R&B and hip-hop radio hits (see “Get Ur Freak On” by Missy Elliot or “The Bounce” by Jay-Z). “[…] I was so curious about where my culture fit into this bigger soundscape where I never saw my people,” she says.
At 16, SHRETA was mentored by Australian R&B veteran Olivia Escuyos, picking up foundational recording skill, knowledge she’d later use to self-produce and recorded her debut single “Cruise” (a cover of Kevin Ross’s track) on a podcast mic. (That track now sits at over 2.5M streams on Spotify alone.)
“SHRETA was already a technically skilled vocalist but she was eager to learn about how to transition into an artist,” Escuyos says. “I think her perspective about navigating the space grew from our conversations about life. I spent my time helping her find the dots to connect, and the rest came naturally. She had strong ambition.”
In 2022, after struggling to break into the Australian market, she spent six months in the US, forming relationships which have become integral to her subsequent growth. She arrived back in Melbourne reinvigorated and determined to make her dream happen for real, but something quickly became clear: her best chance at success wouldn’t be in Australia.
She hustled two retail jobs amidst a difficult application process for an artist visa in the States. It was finally granted in March, and within a couple weeks she was on a one-way flight to LA.
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“It felt like such a full circle moment to start the project in New York [during her 2022 trip], come back to Melbourne, be so bummed that I was in Melbourne, then re-fall in love with Melbourne and finish my entire project there, and then be back to New York [on this trip] with the project out,” SHRETA tells us.
“Brown people live here too. Immigrants live here too. The only people to rep Australia cannot just be the Hemsworth Brothers and Margot Robbie.” —SHRETA
Aware of the significance a self-titled EP holds, everything about SHRETA was deliberate. “I want a face like this and a name like this parked right in front of Melbourne City as the cover art, you know?” she says.
“Melbourne’s the fashion capital, we know this, it’s fly. I don’t need to pretend to rep this place. I was born and raised in Melbourne, it’s in everything I do. I want this project and my sound, brand, and visuals around it to be like the backdrop to this city.”
On the EP, Shreta gets straight to the point with a boastful display of songwriting and vocal range. The intro and EP’s biggest hit, “Messy”, is bold and intimate, while “WDYM?” feels like a heartbroken diary entry, and “Control” could be this summer’s feel-good anthem. “Melbourne represents what my life and the lives of so many people my age look like, just trying to get by, being in the city, hustling,”she continues. “This is what our lives look like.”
Big-name artists like Jay Sean, NAV, M.I.A, and Norah Jones have all stamped South Asia’s influence throughout the music industry, but all of them have stage names that are “easier to pronounce” than their birth names.
SHRETA going with her first name, a traditional Indian name meaning spiritual illumination, auspicious, and blessed in Sanskrit language, as her stage name was deeply intentional, alongside her EP’s titling. “I think it’s really beautiful to have my Indian name as my stage name, which is something that a lot of Indian acts before me couldn’t do. You notice a lot of South Asian artists change their name to something more digestible. I’m not going to do that,” she says. “You can get it wrong and I’ll correct you, and that’s okay.”
South Asian culture is often exploited for its marketability, and SHRETA’s seen first-hand how identity can be used as a marketable gimmick. “It would be so easy if I was to just be dressed in full Indian attire and make my branding this exotic thing,” she admits. “I’ve literally heard people in rooms and meetings talk about artists that way, like this is the brand.
“Culture is something that informs our choices and who we are, but it shouldn’t be something that I’m offering on a plate to the industry as this exotic piece of meat. I wanna be a cultural icon for my people. Someone that champions Indian culture, music, and fashion.
“Us immigrants live this split life of absorbing two completely different cultures. There needs to be more people that speak about that and I want to be someone who champions that for both of my cultures. But yeah, I’d love for Australia to have one icon that isn’t white.”
Her rejection of tokenism runs deep, largely shaped by her childhood experiences. Acknowledging previous boundary-pushers within the industry, SHRETA’s yet to see someone from Australia go the distance, and is determined to be the first.
“I’m not a pioneer by any means — there’s so many incredible South Asian women who’re so strong and authentic in their self-expression and don’t allow the culture to shape that or stop that. Coming from Australia, being from where I’m from, I didn’t see anybody else like me, and I knew that it was important.”
Growing up within a rich South Asian community in Melbourne, SHRETA’s never been afraid to push the status quo, feeling ostracised yet unapologetic in her outspokenness. “There are people in my life who believed I would only amount to what they thought was okay,” she says. “They want to limit you because it’s comfortable. But I just think that sucks that you’re uncomfortable while I’m living my best life?”
Posing in an oversized male blazer on the EP’s cover art, clearly nothing’s changed. “I felt that South Asian women were never allowed to play with masculinity, they’re never allowed to say ‘I don’t want to be super feminine and obedient to this man,” she says.
Now, she’s assured. “I know that if anyone’s strong enough to do this and bring it over the line, it’s going to be me. There’s a brown woman somewhere in the world that needs to see that, and see that it’s okay.”
Despite gaining early approval in the States, her lack of support from the Australian industry is surprising considering local female R&B is one of the country’s best genres. “Man, you’ve gotta ask your friends, go ask Melbourne,” she says with a laugh. “I just didn’t want to run a clout-chasing popularity contest to win people over.
“The Australian industry still moves in this very analog, old-school way of signing artists. Labels have A&Rs who are not outside, signing all these artists. In Australia, music feels like it has to be a hobby. If it still feels like a side hustle, how can artists be all in?
The Australian industry is less indie artists curating their own business and brands or becoming business owners. I think the American music industry allows for that. It allows for creative partnerships, investments… there’s so many other options available for independent artists to build. Australia is still catching up in that sense.”
Now on an artist visa in the US, music is the only way SHRETA’s allowed to make money.
That’s why her goal has always been commercial success. “I think that it takes a lot of courage to actually say to people,’I don’t want to be alternative, I want to be commercial.’ I want people to receive me, I want to disrupt, and I want people to hear what I’ve got to say,” she explains.
SHRETA is a project of major-label quality. No deals are on the table just yet, but it wouldn’t be a shock if this EP is what puts its creator firmly on the industry’s radar.
When asked to imagine herself on the Grammy stage in 2035 accepting the Album of the Year award, she doesn’t blink. “My producer Mikaili, my manager Belle, my siblings, my family. The ones who helped me push this crazy vision uphill,” she says. “I’m not doing this alone, I’m doing it for all the people who invested in me.”
She’s learned to trust the one thing no one can take from her. “Don’t forget what you already know,” she tells herself. “Your instincts, your taste, your gifts — that’s what sets you apart. That’s what gets you there.”
SHRETA’s self-titled debut EP is out now.
