The line between what is alternative and what is mainstream becomes blurrier every day, which is good news for artists who don’t occupy one space or another. Things have especially been opening up for Black women, who historically have had to contend with even narrower expectations from the music industry than other female artists. It’s hard not to see this trend in the trajectory of Tkay Maidza’s career. Initially signed to Universal Australia and moving among smaller labels tied to majors, the Adelaide-based singer and rapper is now signed to the London indie label 4AD. Maidza’s first release with them, Last Year Was Weird, Vol. 2, is an EP/mixtape that feels like a second debut at a moment when the world might be more ready to process an artist with her unique combination of ambition, pop aptitude, and quirkiness than it was when she released her actual debut four years ago.
During her early development as an artist and slow rise to international recognition, Maidza seemed at times unsure of how to position herself. As a Zimbabwean-born Australian with a knack for gliding across the borders that separate pop, hip-hop, and electronic music, she can be forgiven for her uncertainty. On her 2016 debut album, Tkay, she channeled Santigold and M.I.A. in a sing-song derived from soundsystem culture on electro-rap party jams. Her rapped verses were fluent and vivid but a bit too indebted to Azealia Banks. “Castle in the Sky,” leaned strongly in the direction of Little Dragon’s sound at the time.
Last Year Was Weird, Vol. 2, the second installment of a planned trilogy, frames the 23-year-old artist fully as herself. She’s reunited with Tkay and Last Year Was Weird Vol. 1 producer Dan Farber for this release, who crafts eight varied tracks that allow her to showcase her versatility. “Awake,” featuring JPEGMAFIA, and “Grasshopper,” two dark and filthy trap productions with a case of UK drill envy, give Maidza the opportunity to rap hard while nimbly switching up flows. On the minimal, mid-tempo “Shook” and bouncy house number “24k” she goes for speed. Amid these different modes, she finds room to move freely, eventually touching down in terra firma of her own.
Movement, particularly flight, is a motif on Vol. 2. The album opens with a lo-fi hip-hop track titled “My Flowers” where Maidza drawls reflectively about her petals taking flight. Later, “24k” is introduced by an announcer for “LYWW radio” speaking from “30,000 feet in the air.” It’s a theme that suits her well in this moment, where the first-generation Australian who has spent the past several years touring and travelling displays a sensibility that’s a little bit of everywhere and also nowhere specific. While a hint of grime creeps into her style on “Grasshopper,” she strikes a distinctly Californian tone when crooning cooly to the sunny bedroom pop of “You Sad” and the trippy funk of “PB Jam.” You can almost hear Maidza’s passport getting stamped as she goes from song to song.
Adventurous as it is, Vol. 2 ultimately lands in a pop space and Maidza is, indeed, a pop star — albeit a habitually code switching one making third-culture pop music. It’s something her influences pioneered and something she’s learning to do her way in this series of mixtapes. In addition to flight, metaphors of blossoming and emerging from a chrysalis crop up throughout this release, underscoring themes of growth, lessons learned, and flexing newfound confidence. The narrative is convincing. Well into her career at 23, she sounds wise but not jaded, armed now with as much self-knowledge as raw talent.
Vol. 2 arrives in an era where self-created alt-pop stars such as FKA twigs and Grimes are commonplace, left-field rappers like Princess Nokia, with whom Maidza has toured, have real clout, and electro-flamenco artist Rosalía wins Grammys. Each artist who bends the conventions of their genre widens the possibilities for the next artist who enters the field, allowing them to work without worrying as much about how they will be categorized. It’s an atmosphere more conducive to the expansion of Maidza’s gifts than the one she started out in, which bodes well for Vol. 3.
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