Miss KaninnaToday Miss Kaninna is a global phenomenon – the proud Yorta Yorta, Dja Dja Wurrung, Kalkadoon and Yirendali sovereign woman blazing across Europe with her message of Black liberation. There is fury but also radical joy as she recognises the power in possibility.
"I definitely pinch myself every day that this is my life," Miss Kaninna declares.
In the midst of her European BLACKPRINT tour, Miss Kaninna is savouring a lull as she prepares to perform at the Sziget Fesztivál – held since 1993 in Budapest, Hungary on Óbudai-sziget ("Old Buda Island") in the River Danube.
In fact, Miss Kaninna is promoting her first mixtape, BLACKPRINT, heralded by the Clipse-like single MOB TIES. The hotly-anticipated collection delivers "resistance music," paying homage to vintage hardcore hip hop while proclaiming Indigenous solidarity with the Black African diaspora.
Europe has been experiencing an intensifying heatwave but, Zooming at 10am, Miss Kaninna, sporting a green-trimmed tangerine tank, looks fresh. "It's like 35 degrees right now and I'm sort of in the sun."
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The location in Central-Eastern Europe is symbolic. In 1956 university students initiated an uprising in Budapest against the USSR-controlled regime that was crushed by the Soviet military apparatus, culminating in mass displacement.
But Miss Kaninna's moves are always consequential. The week prior, she reunited with her Irish hip hop allies KNEECAP (and fellow anti-establishment renegades Bob Vylan), playing a sold-out gig as part of Féile an Phobail, a charity festival in Belfast, Northern Ireland conceived amid The Troubles.
Here Miss Kaninna met Greta Thunberg, posting a photo of herself flanked between the Swedish climate and human rights advocate and KNEECAP's Móglaí Bap on Instagram. Coincidentally, on Sunday, the United Nations observed International Day Of The World's Indigenous Peoples, foregrounding how community representatives are networking – Miss Kaninna one of those "inheritors".
Still, the truth-teller is surprised to have found a fan in Thunberg – "a really good friend of KNEECAP's, for obvious reasons." Miss Kaninna had admired the 23-year-old ever since her "famous" "How Dare You" address to the UN General Assembly in 2019.
"As a young activist myself, I really connected with that speech and I was so invigorated that young people, young white kids also across the planet, were giving a fuck about the climate – 'cause, as Aboriginal kids, we care so much about the environment."
The encounter was serendipitous, Miss Kaninna walking off stage. "I didn't know Greta was gonna be there," she continues. "She came out and she saw me and I saw her and I was like, 'Oh, my God' and she was like, 'Oh, my God' and I was like, 'Wait – why are you, 'Oh, my God?'
“She was like, 'I just watched your set! It's so nice to meet you. That was incredible.' I was like, 'Stop…' I was like, 'Please stop. I am freaking out right now – like I'm obsessed with you. I think you're incredible.' And she was saying such amazing things back.
"We were hugging and we were laughing and I was just like, 'This is such a trip' – you know, that she just watched my whole set... She didn't know who I was before. We ended up hanging out a little bit and taking some photos. She's so down-to-earth and she's so cute. I really appreciate her staying and watching the whole set."
Footage of Thunberg (donning a keffiyeh and KNEECAP's Irish trídhathach/tricolour balaclava) bopping in the crowd and chatting to Miss Kaninna went viral, elevating her profile. She describes their exchange as "probably a highlight, not only of just this trip, but probably my career."
The Music's December 2023 cover star, Miss Kaninna grew up on lunawanna-allonah/Bruny Island off lutruwita/Tasmania's South-Eastern coast.
Musically precocious, the vocalist would depart for Boorloo/Perth to attend the Western Australian Academy Of Performing Arts (WAAPA), returning to study nursing in nipaluna/Hobart as the COVID-19 pandemic struck. The chance then arose for her to portray Cynthia in 2022's touring theatrical production of The Sapphires, rehearsing in Naarm/Melbourne.
But, determined to be a "Black pop baddie", Miss Kaninna pursued a vocation as a hip hopper, appearing live at Dark Mofo. The next year she broke out with her now signature empowering anthem Blak Britney – which Close Counters' Finn Rees helmed. The single was picked up by triple j and Miss Kaninna named 'Unearthed Artist Of The Year'.
Miss Kaninna's pressers list countless achievements – from awards (she's won three AIR Awards and had six ARIA nominations) to historic triumphs (with Blak Britney, she became the first Aboriginal woman to receive an ARIA nom for a debut single) to the odd fun diversion (guesting on ABC TV's cheesy Spicks And Specks, providing backing vocals to Meanjin/Brisbane grime MC Nerve's eccentric flip of Justin Timberlake's SexyBack for Like A Version and programming rage).
Miss Kaninna has steadily aired more "Aboriginal Baddie Music", emerging as a streaming sensation with billboards in New York's Times Square. In 2024 she officially premiered with the EP KANINNA, flexing her range as a singer, rapper and songwriter – Pinnacle Bitch a swaggering club banger.
Late last year the star unleashed the soulfully-sung alt-rock BACKSTREETS, chronicling a toxic relationship – and shooting her inaugural video. Significantly, Miss Kaninna established herself on the international tour circuit, being "ready for export."
After supporting those self-proclaimed Fenians KNEECAP on their sold-out East Coast dates here in March 2025, Miss Kaninna joined an epic European run (during the ultimate show at Glasgow's OVO Hydro, she had the crowd chanting "Always Was, Always Will Be Aboriginal Land").
Mind, Miss Kaninna has generated heat even when not dropping bars. In November 2023, as guest host of triple j's Hip Hop Show, she raised the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, leading to 10 complaints and an investigation by The ABC Ombudsman Fiona Cameron into its "impartiality standards".
This year Miss Kaninna finally – and definitively – discussed the incident, and the fall-out, "exclusively" with Antoinette Lattouf on her ETTE Media podcast We Used To Be Journos.
For Miss Kaninna, travel has been "refreshing" – the international reception granting her a new perspective. But, when in 2024 she showcased at SXSW in Austin, Texas, Miss Kaninna was deterred.
"I was told by a lot of people, 'Don't bother educating them about Aboriginal people, don't bother educating anybody outside of Australia, because they don't care and they don't know and there's no point.'
As a young artist, I was like, 'What? Surely this is the perfect opportunity to put pressure on the Australian Government because, if the world knows how the Australian Government is treating Aboriginal people, the Government will have pressure to change' – because we already know the Government is not doing enough. We already know that the Prime Minister Of The Commonwealth [Of Australia], Anthony Albanese, doesn't give a fuck."
Miss Kaninna emphasises, "What is going on right now is apartheid and there's no other way about it – it's just a fucking soft version of apartheid." Later she rues, "I really do think the Australian Government is just waiting for people to forget about us so they can fucking finish the job [of genocide] off!"
Post-SXSW, Miss Kaninna questioned herself. "Going over to America for the first time was quite difficult for me because I wasn't really sure who I wanted to be internationally and I was taking on a lot of other people's bullshit."
But her journeys to Europe have been vindicating. "The only person holding me back is myself – and I am able to dictate what I wanna share and what I wanna say and what I wanna do."
And Miss Kaninna understands that visibility matters for Indigenous youth. "I think that's why I try and push the boundaries as much as possible because, when I was younger, I never really saw anybody doing this type of tour," she says.
Back home, Miss Kaninna has pointedly reconnected with communities, relaying observations and relating conversations plus accepting feedback on how to use her platform.
"Although I have a lot to also learn about what people want me to say, this time around has been so incredible because I've realised that people do care about Aboriginal people – people do care about our rights. People do care about prolonging our culture and preserving our culture…
“And so I really feel like there's never been a better time for Blackfullas to be able to leave the country and do this."
Miss Kaninna commends her "support system," particularly family. "I'm very aware of my privilege," she offers. Miss Kaninna has long honoured her strong matriarchal lineage – grandmother Rosalind Langford the co-founder of the Aboriginal Information Service (later the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre) and mother Tipruthanna (Ruth Langford) a healer and campaigner, herself in the news.
Last September, Miss Kaninna helped to organise Sovereign Day Out in response to a Neo-Nazi assault on Camp Sovereignty – a First Nations sacred site and gathering space in the parklands of inner-Naarm/Melbourne.
"The only reason why I'm able to leave the country is because my mum, my nan, my great grandma, all the way back, have fought so hard for our rights."
This legacy, too, motivates her to be an educator. "I think what's really important is also to acknowledge the beautiful parts of our culture," Miss Kaninna rhapsodises. "We are the oldest living culture on the planet and we really do hold the key to so many things, especially when it comes to climate action.
“And so being able to share that, rather than being so deficit or oppression-based, is also so beautiful."
Miss Kaninna has previewed BLACKPRINT in Europe, opening sets with the spare CHAT MY SHIT. Curiously, the songs originated as freestyles – Miss Kaninna's writing process organic.
"If you've been to my live shows, you may hear songs that you may never hear again – because I write songs all the time, weekly I'm writing new songs, and then I'll literally play them live and then I won't ever play them again.
“It's because I think I have ADHD – and undiagnosed – but I don't like to take myself too seriously on stage. When I write a song, I really wanna share it with people." Indeed, Miss Kaninna has "maybe 25 songs" that won't be completed.
But Miss Kaninna decided that some ideas were "sitting in their own world" – the challenge to "reshape" them into songs. Even then, she doesn't embargo material.
"I don't really give a fuck about like, 'Oh, gotta keep this song under wraps and then release it…' I'm more like, 'Shit, I wrote this song, I wanna show people.'" Miss Kaninna ponders, "I'm more live music-centred than [about] releasing."
Conceptually, BLACKPRINT is a statement in itself – informed by Miss Kaninna's adventures but also her disquiet over Western Euro-centric anthropology and its function in perpetuating colonialist narratives. Saliently, as an Indigenous woman, she's reclaiming the cultural identifier "Black".
"I want the opportunity to educate people on the true history of so-called Australia,” she explains. “I do not believe that Aboriginal people walked out of Africa. I do not believe that we had a mass migration. I believe – and a lot of Aboriginal people believe – in The Dreaming.
“I believe that we've always been here and that we were born and created out of the Earth in Australia. I think that's the same for Africans. I think that they have always been in Africa. I think that there have been pockets of humans and pockets of life all around the globe. I don't believe it was one fucking group that spread across – and that's not what our Dreamtime stories tell us.
“And I wanted an opportunity to educate people on that – and that Aboriginal people are the blueprint. We are the Blackprint."
Miss Kaninna asserts that the "Australian Government, the Commonwealth British Government, has done a really good job of trying to erase not only us as people, but us as a concept; us as key players in the key to life."
Miss Kaninna's fear is that Indigenous cultures are endangered, hence the urgency. "We have an opportunity to preserve the oldest living culture in the planet," she states. "If we don't do something soon, we're gonna lose it forever – and everybody plays a part in that.
“Not just Australians, not just Aboriginal, everybody over the whole globe – because we have to work together to preserve the oldest living culture in the planet."
And so Miss Kaninna needed BLACKPRINT to be a project that her Black listenership "could feel proud of," but that would make white listeners "uncomfortable" yet serve as "a call to arms."
Miss Kaninna has consistently smashed down sonic as well as cultural barriers, embracing hip hop, neo-soul and EDM. While BLACKPRINT is her tribute to classic conscious rap (she supported De La Soul in February), its finale is blistering punk-rock – STOLEN WAGES, exposing cyclic dispossession, recalling Miss Kaninna's rocking out alongside Amyl And The Sniffers in early 2025.
There are features – Waanyi/Gangaliida MC Jamahl Yami spits on the biting HANDOUT, dismantling white Australia's systemic racism (and sanctimony), and Miss Kaninna reconvenes with Kobie Dee for the saxophone-laden LOOK AT ME NOW (she previously graced the Gomeroi rapper's Lifetime off his ARIA-nominated EP Chapter 26).
The production on BLACKPRINT is elite – MOB TIES co-produced by Bunaba prodigy 18YOMAN, whose studio credits include Kaitt, Lil Nas X and Kid Cudi.
However, Miss Kaninna isn't sufficiently respected in her own role as a producer. "I don't think so either!" she affirms. "A lot of people will look at me and think that I'm just a rapper or just a singer. You know, people underestimate me all the time."
Dudes are taken aback that Miss Kaninna can cut beats. "I'm like, 'Well, why did you assume that I couldn't?'" That extends to performing live. "I get off stage and they're like, 'Oh, my God…' It's just the life of being a Black girl, I guess."
The dynamic Miss Kaninna isn't wholly satisfied with her earlier output. "When I first released Blak Britney, I was catching up with all the opportunities – and I was getting in the studio with massive producers.
“[But] I was just grateful for the opportunity and so maybe didn't vocalise as much of the changes that I wanted in the music." KANINNA was nominated for 'Best Hip Hop Release' at the ARIAs and she "still loves" it, "except it's not really my music."
Those "massive producers" imposed their sensibilities. "It's so fucking frustrating being in a production session with producers who have egos – because now you're just worried about money and now you're worried about what you think rather than what the music needs and you're not listening to the artist."
Auspiciously, BLACKPRINT "feels more true to the music and feels more true to my brand and who I am and my culture and how I grew up."
Crucially, Miss Kaninna clicked with sympathetic cohorts in Nikodimos – the Greek-Australian musician, a stalwart in Naarm/Melbourne's neo soul scene, acting as executive producer – and the prolific Lucy Blomkamp. Both "care about the music the most and they care about what it sounds like," she maintains. Miss Kaninna had already liaised with Blomkamp for BACKSTREETS.
Miss Kaninna demoed STOLEN WAGES using cracked laptop software before running it by Blomkamp. "I said, 'Lucy, I'm not very good at low-end engineering, I don't know how to do this low-end bass… Can you please remake this song for me, but make it fucking massive and really work on those sounds?'"
Something similar happened with the mixtape's title-cut, which was "very heavily inspired by" Doechii's BOOM BAP. This time Nikodimos assisted – with another reference The Prodigy's infamous '90s big beat Smack My Bitch Up (which, as Gen Z, Miss Kaninna knows from Charlie's Angels).
"It's important to me to be in control of my music, it's important to me to be hands-on," Miss Kaninna reiterates. "But, yeah, production for me is one of the most important parts of the song. I'm so done with letting producers just tell me what to do – like it's my music!
“At the end of the day, if you don't listen to me, I'm not gonna be in a studio with you."
Miss Kaninna is detail-oriented, down to the iconography – her silhouette as distinct as that of a Madonna, Janet Jackson, or Beyoncé. She enjoys expressing herself aesthetically, styling her own looks with ensembles either op-shopped or gifted by brands.
"I do not fuck around with expensive clothes," Miss Kaninna insists. "The most expensive thing that you'll see on my body are probably my shoes because I am a big shoe girl. I love shoes."
Yet Miss Kaninna wasn't confident in 2023. Following Pinnacle Bitch, she endured body shaming online. But witnessing Amy Taylor's body positivity prompted her defiance. "I prioritised live shows and touring over visual representation for such a long time – although I have been dressing myself from the get-go.
"Tasmania has such a specific style code and I always felt very watered-down and that I couldn't express how I felt – also because I'm very insecure about my body, was very insecure about my body; very insecure about the way I look. I wanted to fit in as much as possible and [was] like, 'If I don't try, I won't get any negative feedback.'
"It wasn't 'til I moved to Melbourne that I was like, 'What kind of fucking free will is that? Just fitting in – that's fucking lame. I'm only gonna be in my 20s once. Am I gonna be 55-years-old and wishing that I wore a miniskirt? I don't want that!'
“Then I started wearing a lot more what I wanted and dressing a lot more how I wanted, which also started boosting my confidence in what I was saying and how I was being and how I was being in groups and by myself and learning how to be alone in spaces and stuff as well and feel comfortable."
Regardless, the visuals accompanying BLACKPRINT are meaningful – Miss Kaninna engaging the "incredible" creative director adriane neshoda. "I wanted a very Twilight-meets-The Matrix-meets-Mad Max kind of apocalyptic, but very futuristic, nostalgic vibe," she explains.
The colours are again symbolic. "I knew from the get-go that I wanted to use the original Aboriginal flag colours, which [are] white, gold and black – the original flag that was raised at The [Aboriginal] Tent Embassy [a permanent protest hub instituted in Canberra on Survival Day in 1972]. I think that it's been lost in history and it's really important to bring it back."
On the striking cover, Miss Kaninna reveals only half her face, the rest shielded by a golden fringe "because the 'Blackprint' could be any one of us Aboriginal women," she illuminates. "We are women. We birthed Indigenous women. We birthed this world into existence.
“I wanted people to be able to see themselves in that and not just see me and think that I think that I'm the Blackprint. I think that I'm a part of the Blackprint – I'm one pebble in a massive pool. And I wanted young people to look at me and think, 'Oh, she could be any Aboriginal girl and we are all her and I am all them.' It's very tongue-in-cheek."
Miss Kaninna has fully transformed into that "Black pop baddie" mentioned in her social media posts. In "Tassie" she was "performing in jeans and a button-up surf shirt," but "I'm so glad that she's done."
It transpires that Miss Kaninna is tireless. Quizzed if, having unveiled an EP and now mixtape, she's contemplating an album and the answer is yes.
"I am slowly developing my sound – and also just fucking around," she divulges. "I made like four songs last week. Not all of them will be released, but every song that I make, I kind of discover a new sound or discover, 'Oh, I actually want my album to sound like this' and then I'll make a new song, but actually I want it to be like this.
“In this process of releasing a mixtape, I've got a lot of freedom to be able to create the sound that I want. We're slowly developing the sound, over the last couple of months… I will be working towards releasing an album next year. I've already accumulated three or four songs that I know I want to be the base pillars for this album."
Miss Kaninna is resisting any compulsion, external or internal, to capitalise on her momentum – being anxious that she doesn't "rush" an LP, she says. "I've spent most of my career fucking catching up – like I really haven't been able to have a break to be able to create an album.
“A lot of people are like, 'Oh, create an album.' I'm like, 'It takes energy. I'm a full-time artist – like I don't have a fucking daytime job that I can lean back on so, if I don't do this gig this weekend, I can't pay my rent.’
“‘So I have to do this gig – and I can't write an album and do a gig at the same time.' So it's about finding the time and creating the music."
Besides, Miss Kaninna will be levelling up. "I wanted the first album that I create to be as authentic and as true to the sound as possible – so this time I'm not gonna rush it... I'm gonna put out music when I feel like it… So [I'm] definitely working on an album, creating the music, creating the sounds, at the moment."
The summer festival rave is flying home for her BLACKPRINT national headline tour – beginning in Boorloo/Perth and expanded with venue upgrades and extra bookings to accommodate demand, triple j a presenter.
She'll notably touch down in Mparntwe/Alice Springs (where "you have a complete fuckstorm of white people trying to control Aboriginal people's lives, right down to what we fucking put in our mouths"). Then Miss Kaninna will wind down the year hitting Spilt Milk.
As a pop star, Miss Kaninna is fulfilling her Black ambition in a uniquely grounded way. "I really wanna be a full-time artist," she reflects.
"I think that, even if this is it, even if this is as far as it goes, I'm really happy because I can afford my rent, I can send my brother some money if I want to, I can go out for dinner, I can buy the clothes that I want, I can stop on the road and give someone some cash if I need to… And I think that that is extremely freeing.
“Financial freedom is not something that a lot of people in our country get to experience,” she adds. “Although I'm not fucking rich, I'm still an independent artist, I still have enough to be able to pay for my rent and my food – and I think that that's important."
The past three years have brought Miss Kaninna a sense of revolutionary optimism as she rocks amps, stereos and headphones. Her dream is "to be one of the biggest artists" and "to make an impact, changing the world," she enthuses. "Aboriginal land rights and just Indigenous land rights and Black power is the goal and music is the vessel. And I really hope that it is successful, as it is in my mind.
"I hope that I'm able to travel around the world educating people on Black issues and Aboriginal issues and create solidarity."
Miss Kaninna’s BLACKPRINT mixtape releases on August 21st via Soul Has No Tempo/AWAL Recordings, with tickets to her national tour on sale now.
Miss Kaninna BLACKPRINT Aus Tour '26
Friday, August 21st – Rosemount, Whadjuk Noongar Country, Boorloo/Perth, WA
Saturday, August 22nd – Albany Town Hall, Menang Country, Kinjarling/Albany, WA
Friday, August 28th – Mayberry, Larrakia Country, Garamilla/Darwin, NT
Saturday, August 29th – Alice Springs Brewing Co, Arrernte Country, Mparntwe/Alice Springs, NT
Friday, September 11th – The Brightside, Turrbal Country, Magan-djin/BNE, QLD
Saturday, September 12th – Oxford Arts Factory, Gadigal Country, Warrane/SYD, NSW
Sunday, September 13th – Oxford Arts Factory, Gadigal Country, Warrane/SYD, NSW
Friday, September 18th – The Corner Hotel, Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung Country, Naarm/MEL, VIC
Saturday, September 19th – Royal Theatre, Dja Dja Wurrung Country, Castlemaine, VIC
Saturday, October 3rd – UniBar, Kaurna Country, Tarndanya/Adelaide, SA
Saturday, October 9th – Odeon Theatre,Lutruwita Country, Nipaluna/Hobart, TAS
Sunday, October 11th – Dingo Festival, Bundjalung Country, Cavanbah/Byron Bay, NSW
This piece of content has been assisted by the Australian Government through Music Australia and Creative Australia, its arts funding and advisory body
