The past 12 months have seen some Aussie artists blow-up in a big way, Courtney Barnett a shining example of this, and another that is on a fast-track way to the top is Adelaide hiphopper, Tkay Maidza.

She’s only 19, however Maidza has already been touted as Australia’s “next big thing” in music, and after a recent interview with Fairfax, it looks like we can thank Australia’s mining boom to thank for that.

You didn’t read that incorrectly, the interview reveals that Maidza’s family came to Australia when she was five years old, her Mum and Dad, an industrial chemist and metallurgist respectively, made the decision to leave Zimbabwe for Adelaide due to the amount of work available courtesy of our flourishing mining industry – score!

The piece goes on to explain Tkay’s upbringing,  she was apparently bought up on a “tight regimen of school and sport” and for kicks “she’d put up cover versions of hits” on YouTube, which lead her to join a weekly hiphop class, and despite initial shyness of revealing her own music, the second song she ever finished, ‘Brontosaurus’, was the beat that thrust her onto the nation’s radar.

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“In a sense it seems too easy. I wasn’t really thinking when I made half of this, even the songs coming out now were written when I felt like I had nothing to lose, but now people are paying attention and coming to my shows, so I’m worried that I’m going to overthink stuff” she told Fairfax.

If you want to catch the talented electro-pop rapper live, we’ve got good news – she’s currently on a nationwide tour and has also been named on the epic Splendour lineup of this July.

Check out one of our favourite Tkay videos, ‘Imprint’ with MUST DIE!:

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