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A full decade into her career,Tkay Maidzais finally having her moment — and on her own terms.
The Zimbabwe-born Australian pop-rapper debuted in 2013 and earned a string of local hits before taking her career into her own hands five years ago as an independent artist. Since the potentially risky move, she’s become one of the music industry’s favorite artists and scored slots as an opening act forBillie Eilish,Dua LipaandLizzo.
Tkay Maidza.
“I feel like I’m almost better than I have ever been,” the 27-year-old musician tells PEOPLE as she gears up to wrap the last of her seven shows on Lizzo’sSpecialTour. “I’m just trying not to be exhausted now.”
Tkay Maidza.Dana Trippe
Dana Trippe
She wanted to change up her sound, but her team at the time didn’t understand why, because she had found success with songs like “M.O.B.” and “Do It Right” with Martin Solveig. “Everyone’s telling you that nothing’s wrong, and if you keep doing what you’re doing, things are going to be fine. But deep down, I didn’t feel balanced or aligned,” she recalls. “I was really depressed.”
So, Maidza found new management, moved to Los Angeles and essentially restarted her career withLast Year Was Weird, a series of three EPs released between 2018 and 2021 that showcased her versatility as a writer and performer, seamlessly shifting between dance, hip-hop, R&B and electronic sounds.
“It’s really exciting, and it’s affirming that I should just do what I want,” says Maidza, who had an early fan in the “Bad Guy” performer. “I remember when I was doingLast Year Was Weird, she’d pick the randomest songs and be like, ‘Yo, Tkay, this song’s hard.’ And I’m like, ‘What? She likes this?’ So, it was cool.”
‘That’s when I had to separate with my old team [again] and find new friends," explains Maidza. “Whilst that was happening, I lost my passport twice, so I ended up having to go to Berlin to fix my visa, which almost felt like a divine intervention of my spirit being like, ‘You need to be alone.'”
As she awaited clearance to return to L.A., she spent three months in the German city — dating and partying at first — before she turned to solitude. “I was like, ‘I just want to experience life,” she says. “After a while, I was like, ‘OK, cool. I’m just going to stay inside, have the dark night of the soul and just rap manifestations.'”
Once Maidza was able to leave Europe, she felt overwhelmed with inspiration. “I wrote eight new songs that I really, really loved, and I felt like a new person,” she says. “I had a different perspective, like, ‘This happened, but it’s OK. It’s a lesson,’ as opposed to, ‘Damn, I’m a victim.'”
Then, she finishedSweet Justice, which is still a breakup-centered project, but not in the traditional sense. “It was every type of breakup, but also breaking up with the old version of myself,” she details. “I had to get into this new mind space where I was like, ‘You just did a tour with Dua and Billie. What is your problem? You’re not little Tkay anymore. You’re in a different tier.'”
Tkay Maidza.Don Arnold/WireImage
Don Arnold/WireImage
This summer, Maidza’s been able to preview the album for massive audiences as Lizzo’s opening act, which has further helped to cement her confident mindset. “The message that she shares and the fact that she’s a successful Black woman who speaks about positivity and loving yourself, I feel like it gave me a new light of myself,” she says. “And to be able to [perform] in front of my family and friends in my country, it has this feeling of, ‘I’m in the right place at the right time.'”
Filled with euphoric production across genres and confident lyrics,Sweet Justicefinds Maidza realizing her full potential as an artist — with help from superstar collaborators like Kaytranada, Stint, Billboard and Flume.
“There’s this feeling of acceptance. If you knew who I was before, I’m not afraid to be this person anymore,” she declares. “I’m growing in the direction that I wanted to 10 years ago.”
source: people.com
