Kaiit: Racking Up '200 Followers A Second' After A Jill Scott Regram

"I woke up in the middle of the night - maybe to grab some water, I dunno - and, of course, you know, you gotta go on your phone and just check the things you got - any messages or whatever - and it was, like, a lot of people commenting and liking and following me," Kaiit Waup recounts of how she discovered one of her musical heroes had Regrammed a segment from her OG Luv Kush Pt 2 video clip. "And then I went onto my Instagram and, yeah! I was getting, like, 200 followers a second!

"It was so crazy, I'm like, 'What is going on?' And then people just keep writing to me like, 'Oh, Jilly sent me here.' I'm like, 'Who's Jilly?' And then, yeah! I soon caught on that, you know, my other mother [laughs] shared my video... shout-out to @realusic; they were the ones that posted my video and Jill [Scott] saw it from there. So much love to them; they're doing some great things, too." 

Scott's endorsement post claimed Kaiit as her musical love child with Erykah Badu and the Melbourne neo-soul artist observes of the resulting instantaneous exposure boost, "It's unreeeeeeeaaaaaal! Now a lot of the demographic for my music is in America, which is SO crazy. I wanna go there so bad! I can't wait to just travel in general though."

You could say that Kaiit literally wears her influences on her sleeves since tattoos of Amy Winehouse and Lauryn Hill decorate the undersides of both of her forearms - one inspirational lady on each arm. "Just having these two strong women by me all the time - and these are women that inspired me and helped me so much in terms of being myself, and creating my own sound, yeah!" she pauses. "So, always gotta have those ladies with me." 

She coughs intermittently throughout our chat and Kaiit reveals she was struck down by a lurgy the day after playing the first date of her Live From Her Room tour to celebrate this debut EP release. "Oh my gooooosh," she says of the Corner Hotel show. "It was, like [exhales, lost for words] - I mean, I've dreamed of stuff like that and people singing my words, but not to that extent."

It's been widely reported that Kaiit owned BIGSOUND 2018 and she was also fortunate enough to grace the Supernatural Amphitheatre stage at Golden Plains earlier this year, which she agrees "was massive", before adding, "I think the people is what makes it so beautiful". 

Kaiit tells us her first-ever festival experience, as a punter, was at that other festival hosted at Supernatural Amphitheatre, Meredith Music Festival. "I got invited down by - I'll just say Aunty Meredith," Kaiit chuckles, "to Meredith Festival, 'cause they knew that I looooove Noname and she was performing. So they were like, 'Come down, come check it out!' It was so amazing, 'cause I knew that I was playing at Golden Plains at that point so I could check it out. It was really great." She'll be heading along to Mullum Music Festival, Strawberry Fields and NYE On The Hill this festive season.

We discuss how, frustratingly, there continues to be a lack of diversity represented on festival line-ups and Kaiit stresses, "It's not like there's not enough dope female people of colour - you know, creatives and artists - like, there's soooooo, so many." She suggests festival organisers should "reach out to community" wherever they're hosting their festival to determine "whatever the vibe is". "Check out live gigs and put people on platforms - those that deserve it," she continues. "Our time has been calling for quite a while now and, yeah. It's quite pathetic, really." 

Born in Papua New Guinea, Kaiit remembers "moving back and forth" between PNG and Australia before her family eventually settled in Melbourne around the time she was "going into Grade Two". "I was livin' it hard when we were in Papua New Guinea, so I'm definitely just grateful for the things that I have here and, you know, the platforms that I'm able to be on. And I can express myself freely over here and I'm thankful for that, too." 

When asked whether she's reached out to Scott (or vice versa) since the aforementioned Regram back in August, Kaiit offers, "I mean, I know the lady's busy - she's got things to do - and I'm just this little M&M in a bag or maybe, like, a Skittle. But I did give a little DM; I don't know if she's seen it or not. But, you know, even not physically messaging her, just, like, thinking about her and saying good things into the universe and just being thankful - I think that's all she'd want, too."