PANIA Used To Think She Couldn’t Sing. Now She’s R&B’s It-Girl.

Justin Bieber might not be the first artist you’d expect to have spurred West Melbourne’s PANIA’s move into the limelight. But it was his 2011 documentary, Never Say Never, that made her first think: “Yo, I want to do music.”

“I didn’t really talk to that many people growing up, except for my brother. I felt like the only way I could relate was through lyrics and music,” she says, laughing at the memory.

“And I think seeing someone that could make a whole crowd feel that way. I was like, ‘Damn, I would love to do that for people’.”

It’s surprising to hear that someone so “in your face” online (as she describes it), was so shy as a kid. Even in our interview, tiny remnants of the trait remain, but it hasn’t stopped her from becoming one of Australia’s dominating R&B artists.

Just this year, two PANIA tracks featured in the reboot, and now global phenomenon, Heartbreak High. Her name was added alongside AJ Tracey and 24KGolden on the Listen Out line-up, and the near future holds an embarkment onto her first headline tour. 

It’s a funny turn of events for someone that once thought they couldn’t sing.

Pania’s family wasn’t very musical. Every now and then, MTV or Islander music would play in the background while they were pottering around the house, cleaning. Beside that, while her parents worked on weekends – sitting alone at home – Youtube karaoke became her introduction into music. Many of her best friends also happened to be singers: Polynesian kids who brought their guitars to school and played during their lunch breaks. But she never really thought she was talented.

“I would voice memo myself,” she says.

“I think I was singing this Adele song one day and I was listening back and I was like, “I’m pretty good, maybe not good, but there’s something there. And I’d sing sometimes around why friends and they were like, ‘your tone is cool’.”

High school was also never where her interests lay. She was always distracted or zoned out. Teachers either loved her or hated her. There was no in-between. 

“I would just talk. I have the worst ADHD,” she says.

“I didn’t like school. I hated just sitting there and doing essays. It wasn’t my thing.”

When it was time to decide what to do after graduation, it was either business or music. Knowing that business would take a lot of focus – and that her brain didn’t work that way – she opted for the latter. That’s when she wrote her first song. 

“I just never had a back-up plan,” she says.

“But I also never had a proper plan. I always just knew. I was like, ‘I’m just gonna do it’. I’ve always been all in, or nothing. I feel like I overthink everything, but I also don’t think about anything.”

Melbourne’s music scene has always been fruitful in young and motivated talent, with cult-like devotion to the experimental. It’s a scene that is rarely replicated across Australia. Around 2018, a producer named eleftherios hit PANIA up after she had just released “Lotus”, a pulled-back R&B track centering a simple guitar melody. He had a studio in Footscray that became the epicentre for a lot of the rising talent that's currently on the lips of tastemakers today: Agung Mango, 3K, CD and Mammoth. 

“I met all of them there, when I started making music properly,” she says.

“And I’d just see them do all these live shows. I think being around that community when I was just starting out, it was super inspiring. Being around each other was super helpful. We were creating our own buzz, because there weren't many people doing stuff in the underground scene.”

Apart from Remi and Kaiit, who were already established artists, the growing R&B and Hip Hop scene hadn’t yet found its footing. Those early studio days saw those particular artists feeding off one another, until years later they would all branch out into their own projects.

“Everyone’s coming up properly now,” says PANIA.

The subsequent release of “ICYY”, in 2020, saw PANIA cultivate an idiosyncratic sound that sits as the undercurrent for much of her music. No doubt a result of her partnership with Melbourne producer Hamley, whose works sit behind artists like Allday, Drapht, BOYSODA, Imbi and Sophiya. 

This year, PANIA’s released a respectable amount of singles garnering hundreds of thousands of streams online: “proof”, “tiki”, and recently “My Crew.” From an outsider's perspective, her discography from her early days to now, documents a growing independence in life and relationships. From romantic codependent vulnerabilities in “ICYY”, to bad girl come-hither hook-ups in club anthem “Tiki”, to all-out self-determination in “My Crew”. 

She laughs at the suggestion that the arc might have been purposeful, “True actually, but it’s just my life.”

Her debut EP burnt ur clothes & changed the addy, while sounding like a personal vendetta to a particular wrong-doer, plays more like a rebirth of herself.

“When I wrote it, I was in my angry stages of what I was going through. I was reflecting on toxic relationships, heartbreak, love, loss, moving on, partying,” she says.

“After COVID lockdowns, I was partying so much. It was all of that but it was kind of just a big rebirth. Like, ‘Fuck you, I’m burning all that shit’, that’s not me anymore and you’re going to see me win. That’s not even to a relationship, it’s to anyone. Anything that’s tried to stop me.”

“It’s super raw, I just wanted it to be human.”

Humanness and genuineness, for PANIA, is at the centre of her output. And an important reason why she believes her music is gaining so much traction. It’s a case, for her, of what you see is what you get. And people resonate with that. But there are still moments where her offstage persona doesn’t necessarily coincide with the one onstage.

“This is so weird, people see my Instagram and then they meet me and they’re like, ‘I thought you’d be so rude.’ I think because the imagery is very bold and in your face. I think that is still me, but most of the time I don’t really talk that much if it’s not with purpose,” she says.

“I like to let my art and fashion speak rather than being loud.”

PANIA is now set to jet into the future, helping to shape the next era of Australian music. But aside from creating a successful and secure music career, her goals sit much higher. The list details creating a brand, getting into fashion, playing around the world and working with her idols. Most importantly, though, she hopes to create generational wealth for her family. 

And of the insecurities and self-doubt that come with the journey, a piece of advice from Tyler The Creator – who she met recently – sits in her mind.

“You’ll be at a really crazy event and then have to go back to the ends [home]. It’s two completely different lifestyles, and you're in the middle, chasing. It's like a balancing act. So I asked him about that.”

“He was like, ‘I know that feeling where it’s right there, you can almost touch it. It’s just the little moments that come when you’re on your path and it’s just those moments in between that remind you you’re on the right path.”

“It’s super validating and it’s good to know that someone that successful has gone through the same shit.”

PANIA’s debut EP burnt ur clothes & changed the addy is out on November 10th (pre-save here).

EP Launch Dates:

Thursday, 17th November - Workers Club – Melbourne, VIC

Saturday, 19th November – Golden Age Cinema – Sydney, NSW

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