Album Review: Tkay Maidza - TKAY

Tkay Maidza moved to Australia as a five-year-old from Zimbabwe, and despite studying architecture at university, released her first track as a fresh-faced 17-year-old. Now, as an almost-just-as-fresh-faced 20-year-old, Maidza drops her first full-length album, TKAY.

Despite her age it feels like this has been a long time coming. Nonetheless, TKAY positions Maidza as one of the most promising artists going around. While Nicki Minaj, Beyonce and MIA have established themselves as role models for a new generation of female rappers and singers, now Australian girls and women have their own local star to follow. And even if the production and all-round quality of TKAY doesn't hit any great heights, her vocals are delivered with unadulterated conviction and intent.

By throwing down spitfire verses like in the opening Always Been and the dubby State Of Mind and embracing her inner pop diva on lead single Simulation and the soaring Follow Me, Maidza refuses to be pigeon-holed. In terms of production, there's a heavy lean towards dancefloor-filling bangers, which - across the album's 14 tracks - can mean at times it feels repetitive (see You Want, at the very end of the record, as an example of a track that seems to be making up the numbers). But overall, and especially across the first half of the album, TKAY hits many more targets than it misses, and heralds the proper arrival of the future first lady of Australian music.