The first thing you see when you look at Zheani Sparkes is the tattoo wrapped around her hairline. Though, these aren't your usual tongue-in-cheek face tattoos. Instead, this runic pattern has a metaphysical purpose pointing to her spirituality and occult roots.
What becomes apparent quite quickly about the rural Queenslander is that, despite being a rapper, nothing about her is typically hip-hop.
"It's just fucking art," she says when asked to describe her music. It's probably the easiest way to describe the genre-agnostic musings of the 27-year-old, who bounces from drum 'n' bass and pop-punk dedications to her late father, metal-inspired odes about her upbringing and PC Music-styled bops.
Over the phone, Zheani is jovial and talkative, outlining her thesis early on in the conversation: "I know I can't sing, but it doesn't matter. I can create."
At first, you may think it's the reason she's a rapper with most of her discography being autotuned, but her venture into music is much more complicated than that.
It would be easy - and much more palatable - to describe Zheani's rise to prominence without discussing what happened in 2019, but to do so also feels unfair to her strength.
Last year, included in the release of her project, The Line on March 8, was a song called The Question. "This ain't no me too bitch, This is beef and I'll beat you," she booms in the opening stanza. It's a direct aim at hip hop group, Die Antwoord's frontman Ninja. Accusations of sexual assault from Zheani against the South African rapper quickly became news around the world and it wasn't long before she was served a cease and desist letter from the duo's lawyers for the song. But in spite of advice from her friends Zheani refused to be silenced.
She had been quiet for five years and being accused of being a "clout chaser" wasn't going to scare her away from the truth. In response, she instead released a music video for The Question, where she revealed a slew of text conversations, emails, screenshots from Instagram, and more to validate her allegations. Both Yolandi Visser and Ninja refuted the claims, as well as posting explicit private photos of the Australian rapper.
Weathering the storm of a year-long battle between herself and one of the world's most notorious rap acts as well as an army of fans has been exhausting, but rather than wilt, it's lit a fire under Zheani who has no plans to stop talking, living her truth or making music.
Zheani herself is apprehensive about linking the events of 2013 to her eventual music career, but she does accept there is some affinity. "There's this idea that I've sat with for a while," she explains over the phone. "If what happened to me in 2013, if [instead of a rapper] a fucking philosopher tried to crack my brain as a 20-year-old woman, maybe right now I'd be at university studying philosophy to try and meet that monster in his own ballpark. But instead, my mind was perverted by musicians."
Gloriously candid yet careful with the words she uses to express the tangle of feelings she's working out for herself, Zheani admits that in tackling these emotions, she almost gave music up. "Everything snowballed with my project, The Line, and it informed what I spoke about because I was like, 'am I just fucking making music because I have this shit to say? Maybe I just need to like get the fuck over this and just say what I need to say and move on with my life.' It's coming from a weird place."
'Weird' is a word often associated with the artist's music and visuals at first glance. In the YouTube comments for Lie And Look, the top comment reads: "I had to switch to porn when my parents walked in because it's easier to explain." While the lyrics paint a picture of a deteriorating relationship, the trap beat is sharp and the visuals see Zheani playing with a small miniature version of herself in the woods.
Much of her work is like this: an irreverent, naked and organic burst of painful anecdotes with divisive visuals. It's twisted and uneasy for some, but for her many fans its refreshing and exhilarating.
As an independent artists, Zheani pulls double duty. She keeps the lines of communication open to her supporters via Reddit, through the comments on her YouTube videos and even throughout this phone call. Her generosity and spirit are captivating, which just makes the music that much better.
Recent single Dirt Bike is the second installment from the rapper's upcoming Zheani Sparkes EP. "Throughout the entire EP I candidly relay events in my life," she tells me. "Things that have happened, that are deeply personal and the whole point is to provide some context."
One song she's most excited to release is Dirt On The Name Of Steven. The song is about her father, who "was actually a really gentle spiritual man; a stark contrast all these fucking rock hard, brutal men that were around me as a kid," she tells me without any hesitation. "He was flawed and had a predisposition to addiction and depression, but this is important for me to touch on."
As far away as 2019 feels, the EP also serves to answer a lot of the harsh criticisms she has dealt with over the last year. "I took a moment to meditate on that and I realised that its coming from a place of ignorance... judge me, that's cool, but don't judge me from a place of ignorance. So I'm gonna try and tell my story as bluntly as possible. [Music] for me is like a spiritual thing, it's like a necessary thing for me to do at this point."
By all accounts - and her own - there is no one else in the Australian scene like Zheani. "I don't hear any female voice talking about anything like this," she says. "I don't see my background represented at all and I think it's probably because it is so hard and painful to do, but at the same time I see how healing it has been to me."
Comments from fans who have grown up around and experienced drug addiction aren't uncommon and Zheani is happy to be an outlet or a place for resonance. "Everyone's got their own specific story," she continues. "Sometimes they're interpreting the lyrics completely backwards but people have had domestically violent fathers, others have had mothers that were violent and harsh with them but they're feeling that healing vibe from this shit, and that's cathartic."
By the end of the conversation, what is most striking about Zheani isn't her infectious energy or her unrelenting passion to provoke her audience, but her dedication to the art. "The whole point is to do something that makes me incredibly uncomfortable, say things that are incredibly straightforward and truthful and see what that does to me and my spirit." She says this so matter-of-factly, it's hard to imagine her doing anything else.
Most of her career so far has tested the rapper's pain tolerance, but she hopes to never stop pushing her limits. "It's all about authenticity and what growth can come from that."
Zheani's Zheani Sparkes EP is out May 29th.
