‘I didn’t know I had it in me’: soul singer Miiesha steps into the spotlight

‘I don’t feel so much hate or resentment because I understand where my pain is coming from’ … Miiesha. Photograph: Mitch Lowe/The Guardian

In the year after Miiesha Young won the 2020 Aria award for best soul/R&B release for her debut album, Nyaaringu, Australia’s most promising neo-soul singer resolved to give it all up.

“It was a very, very dark time in my life,” she explains on the phone from Brisbane, where the 23-year-old Anangu and Torres Strait Islander woman is searching for a place to rent between promotional duties for her new dual EP, Smoke & Mirrors. “I just wanted to give everything up – I wanted to throw it all away. I didn’t know who I was without my grandmother.”