_{Cover Image: Miss Kaninna performs at the Rosemount. Image by Allan Boyd.}

Miss Kaninna BLACKPRINT

Rosemount Hotel, North Perth

Friday 28 August 2026

It’s a Friday night in Boorloo and the Rosemount main room is pumping.

This country’s fiercest First Nations hip-hop artist, Miss Kaninna, is in town to drop BLACKPRINT, her debut mixtape. It’s the opening show of her tour, and here at the Rosie she’s supported by local rappers Taija and MALI JO$E.

I’ve been keen to witness Miss Kaninna’s live show since she featured on triple j in 2023 with the powerful song Black Britney: that thick, fat ’70s funk bass; her fresh black-poetry like she fell outta the US Black Panthers; or how I imagine the Freedom Riders may have spat lyrics in 1965. Strong explicit poetry. Fierce accusatory lyrics. The plight of the colonised in every utterance. Dripping with rhythm, sass and politic.

In the Rosie, the beers are flowing and the crowd is chatting excitedly over fat, jazzy house music. There’s a chilled hype, an anxious collective vibe, as we wait for the opening act.

The merch stand is doing good business. There’s already a gang of us sporting the fresh BLACKPRINT hoodie – a thick, black, double-zipped number with large capital letters BLACKPRINT emblazoned in yellow across the front. MISS KANINNA on the back.

It’s a sell-out show. We heave forward for opening act Taija. She struts onto the stage and is immediately into the thick beats, flowing fire lines. She leads us through Greedy, Baddie, No Time, WYS, Half Cut and Blak Magic. Confident, powerful, high energy. The crowd is in every word. Her set is electric. She’s joined by Noongar Wongi hip-hop MC legend FLEWNT for the last track, Mood Killa. We’re all in for the ride. Taija delivers rap-craft in pure professional style. World-class rap straight outta Boorloo.

Mali Jo$e is next. I met Mali in 2020, when he was an Australian Poetry Slam state finalist, delivering his own brand of spoken-poetry on this very stage. Tonight he’s smashing it. Global-style. Prowling the Rosemount main room, spurting waves of lyrical bursts. Vibes of Kendrick. OG Top Dawg style. Rapid-fire delivery. Owning space, giving sharp raps to the bopping crowd. Mali rolls effortlessly through his set, showing the bouncing Rosemount what high-level hip-hop looks like. Georga Raath joins him, adding lilting live vocals to the melodic, hazy rush. This is talent and power. And Mali Jo$e is destined for great things.

Kaninna is on soon. House music shifts up a notch. A version of the 1972 Aboriginal Tent Embassy spearhead-flag is draped across the blue-lit stage. It’s tight in the Rosie. But an amazing young woman in a wheelchair brings a crew of us in from the periphery of the disabled zone. Love and hugs, cheers all round.

You can feel this place is gonna bang. Can’t believe this amazing spot. Lights change to alternating yellow, orange, ochre. A hooded figure appears. Britney Spears’ Gimme More builds into the cheeky YG track F**k Donald Trump, which the crowd willingly chants back. And now there are 500 punters shouting “F**k Donald Trump!” in unison.

I blink and there she is: Miss Kaninna glides onto the stage. Sovereign woman of Yorta Yorta, Dja Dja Wurrung, Kalkadoon, and Yirendali heritage. All the way from Bruny Island shores, lutruwita, Tassie. Right here in Boorloo – on the Rosemount stage.

For me, most of the set is now a bliss-blur of beat-driven, high-octane political-poetry, fat bass and melody – the epitome of blak excellence rap. Kaninna is fierce, staunch and a dollop of raunch. She’s stoked to have sold out her first headline show in Perth. She proudly insists this place is not Perth, but Boorloo. Always will be.

From the outset, Kaninna’s generosity is front and centre. She shares a bottle of Hennessy whisky with the crowd, pouring hefty shots into willing mouths from the stage. She thanks us for coming out. She knows how hard it is to organise babysitters and transport to get to her show. Between tracks, she explains that BLACKPRINT represents the blueprint for mob. It’s for mob and those who stand up for mob. Between songs and whisky shots, she tells stories of being bashed in Bentley when she lived in Perth.

Her music rolls effortlessly through funk-driven, thick-n-dirty bass, old-school hip-hop, soul, R&B, bass-heavy high-BPM tracks, big 808s, mass drops. I feel Missy Elliott. I feel Last Poets. I feel BARKAA. I feel Briggs. And her singing voice belts with skill, talent, power.

She swings fluently between big, melodic vocal choruses and razor-rap verses. Strutting. Owning the room. I’m witnessing true hip-hop stardom. I wish I could tell you all the song titles, man. But I’m inside the Miss Kaninna trance.

Defiant. Black joy.

In Mob Ties: …you went and made me mad, now I’m about to crash, machete on the dash, pedal to the metal and I take off in a flash, this is Blak Britney season… I’m still a Tassie girl and ain’t a f**kin’ damn thing changed, uh…

She invites a young woman on stage to sing along on a track. The guest is ecstatic to share the moment. Kaninna celebrates, sharing more shots of Hennessy with mob.

While Miss Kaninna says she’s “only been in this business for four years,” you’d assume she’s been here forever. There is a reason she’s the first independent Aboriginal woman to be nominated for an ARIA for a debut single.

There is absolute self-assured awareness. Kaninna is in command of the crowd. We are all in awe of her. Her professional blend of high production, high-energy music, storytelling, activism, community and culture is compelling, magnetic.

“I’m a, a back chatter, a hoe-smacker, a brim packer, a hard racker, I’m a, a pig hater, death to invaders, and all the land takers, and all the treaty breakers and all the dictators, and all manipulators, what you say your name was…”

Miss Kaninna is a fearless, truth-telling, sovereign-woman rapping machine with ear-worm power-hooks for days.

Black poet laureate. Bring it.

Look at me now, wow.