Tkay Maidza is one of the most exciting voices in hip-hop worldwide and she just so happens to have cut her teeth in Adelaide…

Words by Zara Richards // Image by Dana Trippe

You never really know when the big moment is,” reflects Tkay Maidza from a couch in her LA home. Fresh from winning the ARIA Award for Best Soul/R&B Album for her second LP, Sweet Justice, the 29-year-old is speaking about her global music career that spans over a decade, starting when she was still a student at St Michael’s College in Henley. “I think a lot of artists right now who are big have been hustling for 10 years. It’s about having consistency.”

Talking with Tkay feels like chatting with an old friend – easy, refreshing and honest. There’s a certain cool confidence about the singer-songwriter that arrives from her being authentically herself, a trait that’s propelled her forward in the turbulent music industry.

Since 2013, the Adelaide artist has been one of the brightest names in Australian music. She’s opened for Billie Eilish and Dua Lipa, collaborated with Flume and pinballed around the world to play stages at major festivals such as Pitchfork, Splendour in the Grass and Reading and Leeds.

Ambition is a defining characteristic of her career (she signed to Universal Australia by 18 and her self-titled debut album includes a feature from industry heavyweight Killer Mike) but so is her individuality. Skip between Tkay’s tracks and you’ll hear the sonic wunderkind weave between hip-hop, R&B and alt-pop to create her signature fiery verses and bouncy rhythms. It’s a sound that’s caused dance floors to heave in unison worldwide. But to hear Tkay say it, her genre-blind sensibilities and experimentative streak are very much products of the internet.

“I would be on MySpace quite a lot,” she recalls. “I just found excitement in downloading music packs and not really knowing what’s on it. A lot of them would be R&B and hip-hop, so I discovered Nicki Minaj before ‘Super Bass’ came out; I was a Kendrick Lamar fan before good kid, m.A.A.d city. I would write my own raps at home. There was something about [music] that felt exciting and like it was my own. I just had this fire burning in me every time I wrote something.”

As a teen, Tkay would catch two trains to attend free classes at youth music centre Northern Sound System. She was later accepted into its N1 Records program, where she built a demo that contained her breakout singles, 'Handle My Ego' and 'Brontosaurus'. Triple J Unearthed was the platform that pushed her into the national spotlight, with major record labels vying for the young star’s skillset. “Every email seemed like this shiny gold medal,” she recalls. “I had no idea what was happening, but it always felt like a surprise – a good surprise.”

Remaining laser-focused on her craft, she says, is what kept her afloat in the choppy waters of the music industry. Perhaps it’s a mindset left over from her competitive tennis days (Tkay ranked in the National Top 200 players while still in high school). But as she waxes lyrical about her creative habits, it’s clear building towards something bigger has always been her MO.

“I’m on the spectrum of a perfectionist but I have this level of care-freeness that I straddle. I also believe that everything I do has to be better than the last," she says.

“I want to make sure I’m putting my best foot forward. I’m like, ‘Is this the best verse I wrote for the song? Is it something you can stay at home and listen to in a dim light and enjoy as much when you go out and it hits you in the face?’ Artists like Childish Gambino and OutKast have that dynamic in their music. And yeah, I’m aiming to do it in my own way.”

That’s why no move has ever felt out of step for Tkay, despite how diverse her catalogue of music is. Her award-winning Last Year Was Weird EP trilogy let listeners witness her artistic evolution across five years as she searched for sonic 'euphoria'. The expansiveness of 2023’s equally-hyped LP, Sweet Justice, is rooted in her move to LA, which she says made her a ‘tougher’ character. However, the growth in her creative approach is tied together by one key element: consistent authenticity.

“So many people see different facets of you, but I feel like, as an artist, [the person] who knows your main ethos is you,” she says. “Trust your gut because it’s probably the right thing. If you’re really excited about it, people will come to you.”

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