Barkaa is one of the most celebrated rappers in Australia right now. And, judging by her music, she knows it. “Let me preach, son, let me talk my s---,” she sings in the swaggering opening track of her new EP Big Tidda. “Let me big note myself because I deserve to, b----“.
In real life, the 29-year-old Malyangapa Barkindji rapper (real name Chloe Quayle) is a lot more reserved. Speaking about last month’s National Indigenous Music Awards, she says she “couldn’t even believe” she took out artist of the year and music video of the year (beating the likes of Budjerah and King Stingray in the former category and The Kid Laroi in the latter).
But Quayle, a former ice addict who did three stints in jail while also raising three kids, is also clear-eyed about how she got to this moment and is intent on celebrating it.
“My life has changed dramatically,” she says, adding she owes much of the success to her ongoing recovery. “My kids don’t want for nothing no more. I’m at a stage in my life where I get to enjoy the fruits of my labour and where it’s okay to enjoy the fruits of your labour … [I’ve] worked really hard for this.”
Growing up in Western Sydney and taking her name from the Barkindji word for the Darling River, Barkaa rose to prominence in 2020, with some of her first tracks (Our Lives Matter and I Can’t Breathe) becoming staples of Black Lives Matter rallies across the country. She then cemented her place as rising rap royalty with 2021’s Blak Matriarchy, a blistering debut EP celebrating Indigenous women, laying bare the trauma they carry, and letting loose the anger behind it all.
“I grew up in a time when [Indigenous musicians] could talk about dancing and culture and all the welcoming things,” she says, recalling being encouraged to avoid more “radical” topics like racism and police brutality at the start of her career (a startling thing for a ’90s girl raised on US acts like Tupac and Wu-Tang Clan). “But I was a young Blak woman in jail. I wasn’t doing all of that. That wasn’t my story.”
“When I released For My Tittas [her first single], I had a label approach me and say they wanted to ‘polish’ me up a bit – like, make me shiny and pretty and nice and reconciliation-y.”
“I was sick of making people feel comfortable”: BarkaaCredit: Tristan Edouard
The ARIA Award-nominated Blak Matriarchy, released through fellow rapper Briggs’ label Bad Apples, came together because Quayle was “sick of being quiet”.
“I was sick of making people feel comfortable when I felt so uncomfortable every single day in my own country,” she says.
It was an intensely personal project, with tracks such as Fight for Me exploring her once-fraught relationship with her mum, a member of the Stolen Generations. “To this day, I pick and choose when I perform that song and check where my mental health is before I leave it on stage,” she says.
Big Tidda, her just-released second EP, is just as personal – but it’s more joyful too. While still full of proudly unvarnished political statements (“half the nation’s racist, most of them are c--ts”), the seven-song release is stacked with self-empowerment anthems.
One track, Alinta, is a tender love letter to her now-teenage daughter that explores young motherhood (for the record, her daughter loves the song but still thinks her mum is “cringe”).
“I wanted to showcase the cheeky side of me, my funny side, my happy side, and my vulnerable side too,” Quayle says. “I don’t want to put myself in a box, or let people put me inside a box. I’m passionate. But I’m not as angry anymore.”
The next stop for Barkaa is a national tour that kicks off at the end of September. And though she would love to break through overseas – and has made connections with Maori fans in New Zealand and Native Americans in the US – it’s a difficult proposition.
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On the one hand, breaking new markets is an eventual necessity for any local artist looking to sustain a commercially successful career – especially one who’s already felt constrained in Australia (a complaint shared by other First Nations artists).
“There’s only a certain bar you can reach in this country until you can’t reach any further,” Quayle says.
But making the leap overseas is tougher when you also have young kids and a criminal record. “I don’t see myself as the next Megan Thee Stallion or Cardi B,” she says.
“That’s not in me. My work is here and always will be here. My voice is for my people and the government here.
“I just want white men to be very scared of me,” she says, laughing.
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