'Without Me Being Vulnerable And Soft, I Wouldn't Be Able To Be Strong And Vocal'

Brisbane's Miss Blanks (aka Sian Vandermuelen) has the Australian hip hop scene shook. The rapper, sonic auteur and style icon has established herself as a cultural phenom in just over a year. Vandermuelen's booty music pays tribute to black queens like Adina Howard, Lil' Kim and Khia. But, as an Australian trans woman of colour, she's wearing her own jewelled crown. Vandermuelen extols diversity, agency and liberation.

Now, on the back of the triple j banger Skinny Bitches, Vandermuelen is airing her first EP - DOAT (Diary Of A Thotaholic). And she's conquering the summer festivals. The femme MC will blaze The Plot before joining Laneway - here rocking her biggest crowds. In fact, Vandermuelen was booked for Laneway after its directors caught her "high-energy" show at Hobart's Dark Mofo in June. Reconnecting with her at BIGSOUND, they raved. For even the self-assured Vandermuelen, this was "exciting" and "refreshing". "It also reinforces the idea that, ok, I'm onto something here and I'm on the right path," she says. Vandermuelen will present "something new" and "fun".

Music has played an intimate, if "abstract", role in Vandermuelen's life. "I think a lot of my experiences with music have been a way of healing, and not so much healing from negative experiences or negative exchanges or interactions," she says. "It's a way of me refocusing, rebuilding and healing - in both the negative and also positive and constructive and critical ways."

Regardless, from the outset, the Brisbanite has been driven to achieve. "Being a perfectionist in all of this kinda thing came out of just me being a child going into my teenage years and quitting school and realising I had to get work early on because I had to support myself, but also support my family. Coming from a single-parent household, this idea of survival dawned on me early on." Initially, Vandermuelen chose a path other than music. She worked in fashion PR and brand management for such luxury labels as Chanel. Vandermuelen lived in places as far afield as New York, Paris and Dubai. But, at the pinnacle, she walked away. "I was just, like, this is done. I did what I wanted to do, made the money that I wanted to make - I need to move on. It was just time. And it was just a toxic industry."

Vandermuelen started pursuing music seriously in 2016, her inaugural gig that September. Having circulated various tracks, she premiered officially this year with her now-signature ode to "a fat ass", Clap Clap (in the slinky video, Vandermuelen leads two leashed male BAEs and lounges alongside her "honeys"). In July, the rapper announced her signing to Sydney producer Moonbase's Trench Records. Meanwhile, Vandermuelen has emerged as an influential LGBTIQA activist. She appeared on billboards as part of Spotify's marriage equality campaign. Then, ironically given her former vocation, the fashionista was recently profiled in the glossy magazine Elle. "I now realise that the music industry has got nothing on the fashion industry," she laughs. "It's so easy to navigate." 

On DOAT, Vandermuelen reveals different facets of herself as a narrator, from the playful and pussylicious to the introspective and unguarded. And, as co-producer, she blends trap, trop house and witch house. The hard-hitting Haters, as savage as Vandermuelen's online clapbacks, recalls Yo-Yo - South Central gangsta rap boss. ("Oh my God - I love Yo-Yo!" she enthuses.) 

Creatively, Vandermuelen trusts her instincts, but this has proven crucial, too, to her "self-care" in an otherwise exploitative entertainment domain. "I realised with my music - whether it's my stage performances, the visual representation, my online presence - everything that is Miss Blanks, it's all-encompassing. I think, in that same breath, I am very generous. I'm a very generous partner, lover, friend, family person, performer - I give a lot of myself, specifically my body. The aestheticising and tokenising - it's not tokenising, but it can be sometimes applied to me... The aestheticising of what is this strong, powerful-yet-sassy and sexy, sinful, confronting Miss Blanks - that's really taxing mentally and emotionally to give that to people all the time, and to constantly be 'on' for people." Following Laneway, Vandermuelen means to take time out "to decompress". (Post-interview, she's treating herself to a milkshake.)

Many assume that Miss Blanks is to Vandermuelen what Sasha Fierce is to Beyonce - an alter ego. Not so. Vandermuelen accepts that it can be "an honest mistake or an honest curiosity" to ask. However, it likewise arises because, as a personality, she's considered "strong and vocal". "A lot of the discussion around Sasha Fierce is: strong, fierce, sexy, unapologetic, raw - all of those kinda things are labelled against these big personas. Same thing with me and Miss Blanks. But people love the idea of that being the be all and end all, like there's no depth; you're typecast as always this one thing. For example, you can't be sexy and smart, you can't be strong but vulnerable, you can't be hard but soft..." Yet Vandermuelen's "juxtapositions", so evident on DOAT, are key. "Without me being vulnerable and soft, I wouldn't be able to be strong and vocal."

Vandermuelen's ascendance has coincided with a generational shift in Australian hip hop - REMI, Tkay Maidza and Sampa The Great challenging the status quo of white, straight, cis male MCs. Indeed, she's promoted Femme Fetale, an inclusive R&B/hip hop club, in Brisbane and Sydney. Nevertheless, Vandermuelen is uncertain where she belongs musically. "I'm not even sure what the current [Australian] 'hip hop sound' is!" she ponders. "I struggle with that because I'm also aware that Australia's mainstream hip hop consumption is heavily commodified and is usually up for specifically white consumption... I don't operate specifically in those kinda 'Aussie hip hop spaces'."

Still, Vandermuelen is claiming a space on the festival circuit. And even her stage posse is personally inclusive. "I think it's important for me doing my work [that] I have a community element, from the dancers I work with to the DJs I work with. A lot of people that I've worked with to date are all close friends."