Recognised and celebrated as one of Australia's most engaging live performers, it has been announced that Malyangapa and Barkindji musician and hip-hop queen BARKAA will be returning to the Sydney Opera House for a very special solo debut at Vivid Live.
Since entering the music scene and having an industry breakthrough in 2020, the popular rapper, musician and activist has gone from success to success.
Captivating the attention of listeners around Australia – and the world – BARKAA has become a powerful voice and figure for not only First Nations peoples, but First Nations artists and creatives.
With this, she has inevitably become an authoritative force for the Blak nation, speaking truth to power in a country rocked by division.
After appearances at Sydney Opera House's Barrabuwari concert in 2021 and Astral People's 2022 anniversary celebration, this year BARKAA will return to the stage and make her first-ever solo debut at Vivid Live.
Set to take place at the Drama Theatre in Sydney, BARKAA will perform a series of hits she is idolised for.
With her on-stage performances known to bring nothing but energy and enthusiasm, she is sure to impress with yet another high-energy performance.
Whilst she did begin rapping in high school, (taking her stage name from the Barkindji word for the Darling River) BARKAA, a teenage mother, also spent time incarcerated and battled addiction, therefore reaching peak success in her later years of rapping.
Not letting her past stand in her way, the talented musician used these experiences to inform her potent, politically charged music.
In 2020, BARKAA's debut singles "For My Tittas" and the incendiary "Our Lives Matter" became cultural sensations with the latter adopted as the unofficial soundtrack to Australia's Black Lives Matter movement.
After signing to Briggs' Bad Apples label, BARKAA released her critically acclaimed EP Blak Matriarchy, a tribute to First Nations mothers past, present and future.
This single saw her be nominated for two ARIAs as well as taking home a National Indigenous Music Award for Song of the Year.
In the wake of last year's rejection of the Indigenous Voice to Parliament, BARKAA unleashed "Division", an uncompromising address to a splintered nation that confirmed the rapper as one of the country's most vital artists.
Now set for the Vivid stage, Barkaa is sure to impress yet another new audience.
Renowned as being an annual celebration of creativity, innovation and technology that brings together some of the most boundary-pushing artists, thinkers, musicians and culinary experts of our time, Vivid Sydney will transform Sydney for 23 days and nights, with Barkaa taking to the stage on Friday 31 May at 7:30pm.
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