Between 2018 and 2021, Tkay Maidza released a trilogy of EPs titled Last Year Was Weird. It was a chance for the Zimbabwean-born, Australian-raised and now Los Angeles-based rapper and musician to try on different musical hats, often all at once. From pop and R&B to trap and industrial, it was an expansion of her sonic world – a step into somewhere new and exciting.
Turns out this year is pretty weird, too. Maidza’s second album, Sweet Justice, lands with a bang. It’s an ambitious, sprawling record that again defies and hops across genres, flirting with different styles and sounds. It’s more eclectic and bolder than her first full-length album, 2016’s Tkay, but maintains that record’s pop sensibilities on tracks such as Out of Luck (featuring Lolo Zouaï and Amber Mark), Walking on Air and the synthy pulses of Ghost!
It’s all underpinned by slick, bass-heavy production and the 27-year-old’s confident delivery, which is key here on a record themed around reclamation. Maidza has described Sweet Justice as a breakup album, but not in the traditional sense – rather than splitting from another person, she’s splitting from an old way of life, emerging from the chrysalis refreshed and ready.
Some of these songs speak to one another. “Free throws, you know that I don’t really need those,” she spits on opener Love and Other Drugs, before circling back to the idea on the fast-flowing Free Throws. There is a world of possibilities here, both artistically and personally; a sense of flow, connectivity and rebirth.
In some ways, the record’s atmosphere recalls another excellent second album of the last 12 months, SZA’s SOS. There’s a sense that these are artists reaching a new height in their artistic careers. Both albums take in a number of moods and sounds, pulling them off with style and competency; both also feature high-profile collaborators who don’t distract from the main act but add distinctive flavour and texture.
In the case of Sweet Justice, Maidza teamed up with Canadian producers Stint and Kaytranada, as well as Australia’s own Flume. The shuddering, industrial-inflected Silent Assassin is her collaboration with the latter and it is a highlight – the rapper is at her bar-spitting best and the producer’s insistent, buzzing breakneck beats are a great match.
There are sounds across the record that nod to those who came before, some expected and some surprising: on the addictive Ring-A-Ling, she channels her inner Missy Elliott with immaculate flow, and the roiling guitar on the slinky Love Again recalls Radiohead. Won One throws back to soulful 90s R&B and it’s back to that decade too with Gone to the West, which samples Skee-Lo’s 1995 track I Wish (which itself samples Bernard Wright’s Spinnin’). Working with guest rapper Duckwrth, Maidza gives the instantly recognisable instrumental another fresh lease on life, adding electronic and dance elements to elevate it to something new.
Bridging past and present, Sweet Justice is a breathless, intoxicating album bursting with ideas and creativity, and reveals something different and compelling with every listen. Maidza is a chameleonic and inventive artist who’s speeding straight to the top of her game – and there’s a feeling, listening to this record with its universe of sounds, that she’s only just getting started.
Sweet Justice is out now. Tkay Maidza is touring the US, Europe and UK in November, before Melbourne on 23 November and Sydney on 28 November
