VICE Spotlight: POOKIE

I first heard about POOKIE when her 2020 debut single “Tuesday” played over the speakers of a local radio station I volunteered at. The way she counted down the days of the week on the song’s hook was so infectious, it soon became something I repeated in my life when someone would ask me what day it is.

“I think it’s Tuesday. It might be Wednesday. See I don’t know, it’s a blur and I can’t say”.

As simple as this hook is, it had me captivated from the very beginning. That undeniable grasp is something that POOKIE’s music continues to emanate 3 years on. Her music is tasty, fearless and liberating. Each song burns the back of your throat like a shot of tequila in the best way imaginable – it creates a lingering feeling of delirium and satisfaction and you have no choice but to keep going back for more. Her witty lyricism and vocal delivery surrenders to every kind of piano melody, drum pattern, and beat. Every word is said with conviction – it doesn’t take much for you to be enthralled in who she is and what she wants to say.

Born in Nairobi, Kenya, POOKIE’s earliest music memory stems from listening to the music her brother was into. Exposed to afrobeats and dancehall in her home country, her relocation to Australia at the age of 7 opened her up to the wide world of hip hop. When a curious Pookie met and mingled with a group of young poets, she began to write.

“We'd go out to open mic nights and stuff like that, which is how I kind of started getting into writing. I probably performed certain pieces maybe two, three times before I even discovered GarageBand,” she told VICE.

With no intention of fleshing anything out sonically, she soon learned to play different chord progressions and formulate drum beats on her laptop, creating soundscapes that played underneath her poetry performances. 

It was at Afro Hub, a now-closed performance space in Carlton, Victoria, where Pookie began experimenting with rap styles more. She found like-minded people in the community of POC and Black creatives that frequented the space, and soon found her own unique rhythm and method that made her stand out amongst the crowd.

“I used to be so shy [performing], I would shake,” she said. “I don't even know why I was forcing myself to get up… but I feel like that was a very monumental point for me. I remember there was a particular performance that I did, I didn’t even know how to bounce beats out. So I would get the crowd to snap along with me. It was really playful. That's when I realised I actually enjoy doing this.”

From there, POOKIE began performing with a 5-piece jazz band, creating her debut album FLick in 2021. It’s an animated and poignant project that solidified Pookie as a prolific writer and hypnotic vocalist. Now, a POOKIE live show consists of a DJ, a synth player, and a violinist, who each compliment her knack for gripping storytelling. However, this isn’t set in stone. Much like her whirlwind sonics, the format POOKIE performs in is like a “seesaw” of emotions. It all comes down to how she feels.

“All I can say for sure is it's always gonna be different. I’m a chronic procrastinator, so sometimes I'll just figure it out two days before the show. It's a new experience for me each time as well,” she said. 

“I rehearse, I prepare the show and I put as much work as I can into it. And then once I get on stage, I kind of just let all of that go. If there's a moment where I'm super confident or get lost in it all, then that's what will happen. If there's moments where I'm shy and a bit awkward, then I've kind of learned to accept that too. Because that’s just me.”

Ultimately, POOKIE carries an element of surprise in everything she does, while holding onto a certain amount of professional and personal calm.  She’ll switch it up when she feels like it, or maybe she won't. Regardless, her music is the purest form of herself you will find.

“My music is sassy, a little bit promiscuous. It’s soft, but also unquestionable. My art in general is the one place I can definitely say I'm very sure of myself. It comes from a place of self understanding,” she said.

When discussing the biggest influences behind her music, the catalogue stretches between her South Sudanese heritage and Dinka culture, as well as the westernised hip-hop and rap culture she spent her formative years engulfed in.

“[In my culture] we jump to drums. Once you’ve been jumping for an hour, you’re in a trance. Because I've done that since I was so young, drums are really instilled in my DNA. But then because I came here when I was so young, I'm also quite westernised. So I think the mixing of those two also has kind of created its own sort of thing. And obviously, Missy Elliott. I think she's someone that comes into my conversations a lot. I think she's someone who really helped me understand the concept of not giving a fuck. Especially once I started making music, it started to affect my personal life. So she's really helped me embrace being different. I consider myself a student of life. So every day, I feel like I'm just absorbing everything.” 

The future is vivid and bright for an artist as strong willed and determined as POOKIE. But in the grand scheme of things, there are necessary shifts to be made in our homegrown scene in order for her, and her peers, to truly reach creative freedom.

“I hope to see artists cease being afraid of the music industry, and stop allowing it to dictate how we move. Our whole job is to be expressive, express ourselves, express our truth no matter what that looks like. Especially in the hip hop sphere, the industry is there because we exist…when we think about all the greats that have done this before us, they were rebels. So I think we could really take things here to the next level and take our ability to be creative to the next level, if we 100% truly took our journeys into our own hands.”

Adele is the Junior Writer & Producer for VICE AU/NZ. Follow her on Instagram and Twitter here.

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