Miss Kaninna: Holding the Blackprint

"You have to learn from the past to be able to move forward," Miss Kaninna muses meaningfully over Zoom on a chill Monday arvo, discussing the meaning of her latest offering's title.

The multi-award-winning artist, rapper and proud Yorta Yorta, Dja Dja Wurrung, Kalkadoon and Yirendali sovereign woman is weeks away from dropping her debut mixtape BLACKPRINT, marking the release of her second extended-play since her banger of a debut single 'Blak Britney' shook up the Aus music scene in 2023.

The name BLACKPRINT is one that Kaninna had been playing with for a while, riffing off hip hop history by paying homage to Jay-Z's 2001 album The Blueprint and Nicki Minaj's The Pinkprint and also harbouring a deeper meaning.

"I wrote a song called 'BLACKPRINT', kind of talking about how Aboriginal people, Black people and Indigenous people all across the world really do hold the key to everything. I [wanted to] throw our name in the mix because Aboriginal people continuously get told that we are in the deficit when I think that Aboriginal people do hold the key to so much history and so much of the future."

Through the six gritty, groove-driven power-packed tracks from the mixtape, it's clear that Miss Kaninna has something to say; and say it with her chest she will. Recorded at Friendship Studios and executively produced by Nikodimos (Hiatus Kaiyote, Genesis Owusu), each of the tracks were formed from lush freestyles and refined into a strong, polished and downright electric body of work.

"I wrote 'STOLEN WAGES' before I went on tour with KNEECAP last year. Writing that one song really just started a chain of freestyles…Then one thing led to another and it turned into a mixtape."

And with any mixtape worth its weight, comes killer collaborations. In Miss Kaninna's case, these collabs are Kobie Dee on 'LOOK AT ME NOW' and Jamahl Yami on 'HANDOUT'; the former written about Kaninna's journey coming from Tassie, moving to Melbourne and rising into a booming success, responsible for tearing up stages at sold-out shows across the nation. This reality, she states, reminds her of Dee's rise, so inviting him to write his own verse felt like a no-brainer.

"Since I started music, I've always been a fan of Kobie. He is like the king of rap right now in our community, so it was so crazy to be able to meet him and connect with him. He’s my brother now.”

The latter track 'HANDOUT', with Jamahl, an artist who Kaninna met through her move to Melbourne, was written collaboratively in-studio.

"Jamahl’s probably one of the top rappers; he’s just really up there with his flow and style and he's got a lot to say, so him on 'HANDOUT' was so important. We wrote that song together from scratch with Nikodimos and we just vibed that shit out because he has a lot of the same values as me. He's from Cairns and he loves to fuck around, but he's also super staunch."

Jumping straight from those studio sessions onto stages shared with US hip hop royalty De La Soul in February, Kaninna grabbed Jamahl to help turn these freestyles from concepts into fully fledged songs tight enough to satisfy even the toughest of hip hop purists.

"I was like, 'yo brother, if you wanna come rap in front of De La Soul you gotta come and be at this show in Melbourne'. We had no rehearsal. We finished the song 24 hours before that and I was like, 'listen, we have to do this. This is gonna be lit'."

This last-minute track ended up turning heads at this show, transforming the "thin as fuck" crowd for Miss Kaninna's opening set into a rowdy pit that commanded punter’s attention. "I feel like when I rap in that high pitch and just the way Jamahl demands respect and demands eyes, it really elevated the set."

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And a similar story follows with Kobie Dee on this tour.

"For Brisbane and Sydney, Kobie happened to be in Brisbane the same time as me and it was the same vibe, so I called him. It's always like that with the Melbourne rap scene. If you get a good opening slot, especially for some of these OGs, you call all the people you know to come on stage so they can be a part of that. You share that win."

A community vibe is what Miss Kaninna thrives in. All her on-stage and backstage encounters, even on tours with artists as big as De La Soul, Irish hip hop trio KNEECAP and punk icons Amyl and the Sniffers, were about driving connection, sharing culture and community, as much as they were about playing on the massive stages.

"Maybe because I come from a community vibe, I’m always trying to chat to cunts [backstage] and ask people about what the fuck's going on in culture and in other shit, not just music. Music is about our experiences and we’re talking about what's happened to us. Music is a story. I hate it when you go to gigs and people think that it has to be just business or it’s just about music and not about the story, where it comes from or where you’re from.

"I'm Aboriginal, so when I go on these tours with these people, I want to know if they're fucking with the shit I’m saying or not. All those people that I've been on tour with, they're all very much down to earth, powers of the people, people."

In September, to celebrate the mixtape, Kaninna is taking a headline tour across the country to bring the message to the people. When asked how she hopes audiences receive the mixtape, she articulates, "I hope that people wake up a little bit to their own power and their own ability to make a difference, not only in their own inner circle, but in their communities, however that may look.

"I think Black Excellence is whatever the fuck we say it is. I want to uplift people with this kind of music, but also remind them of what’s going on."

The mixtape honours Miss Kaninna's commitment to truth telling, standing up against oppression and promoting Black power in a way that doesn’t always hold anger at the forefront.

"I think people get confused between passion and rage," Kaninna sighs. "I am fucking angry, let's not get that twisted. But at the same time, I also am so proud and happy and joyful and love what my community has created and what music is doing in my space.

"I think that there’s a deep sadness, but it's not in a reactive way. Like, I feel like there is such a time for mourning and such a time to be sad and really be in that. But at the same time, this mixtape is more about like, I’m going to go and get the shit that I want and it’s not because you give it to me, it's because I took it back."

And while reclaiming happiness, hope and throwing in handfuls of passion and rage, Kaninna shares that in the mosh pits of her live shows is where community lives, the girls, the gays and the they’s thrive and joy is shared expressively, positively and arm-in-arm.

And from Kaninna’s side of the stage?

"Oh my God. It’s so much fun. I love it!" she lights up.

"There’s always such a big group of girls in the front who scream shit out and I love it. And then there’s the row after that, which are all the boys [that are] into it and they just need an excuse to get down. It’s very much chill and feel good.

"It’s giving loud, sexy rage."

Miss Kaninna plays at Adelaide UniBar on Saturday 3 October. Tickets on sale now at moshtix.com.au. BLACKPRINT is out on Friday August 21 via Soul Has No Tempo and AWAL Recordings. Pre-order/pre-save here.