Melbourne R&B singer Pania explores the trials and tribulations of young adulthood in her new EP

“I think every time I write music, I learn about myself because sometimes I don’t process things until a lot longer after.”

Hiding in a quiet corner on the twelfth floor of my university, I sign into a Zoom call. I’m slightly nervous; I haven’t zoomed since 2021, and I’m feeling rusty. I fumble around trying to get my microphone to work until I’m greeted by Pania. The Melbourne-based musician is sitting in the front seat of her car.

There’s a slight sense of comedy from our choice of locations. It feels like we’re playing a game of grownups, both nestled within a quiet corner of our individual worlds, ready to play interviewer and interviewee.

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Pania’s new EP We Still Young was released last month. Produced between two of the world’s music hubs, London and Melbourne, the EP carries a sound that mimics the vibrancy of the places it was conceived.

Growing up in West Melbourne – it turns out we went to neighbouring primary schools – we make knowing eyes about our school experiences. We laugh about it awkwardly, reminiscing on the pain of our teenage years and how we eventually discovered our respective creative passions.

Pania’s “come up story” (as she puts it) was a Justin Bieber documentary that imbued her with a newfound confidence in her musical abilities. “It took me a while – I’ve always been super shy,” she reflects. “Like, even now I’m really shy and kinda overthink things.”

Entering my early twenties, I’m faced with a new smorgasbord of feelings I haven’t grappled with previously. Believing in myself and staying true to my aspirations is both my strongest quality and a cause for minor breakdowns. To me, Pania appears so confident online and within her music. Her style, both in fashion and sound, is reflective of the late ’90s and early 2000s R&B artists who feature on the playlists I’ve created for strutting down the street and hour-long showers.

I’m taken aback that she describes herself as a shy person, and ask her how she built the confidence to share her personal experiences through her art, especially with strangers. “… I guess meeting the right producers and surrounding yourself with people that kind of believe in you… That helped me be like, okay, maybe [the music’s] good. I started on SoundCloud, kind of got recognition, and then just little building blocks… I’d do little shows here and there. It’s definitely the people you meet along the way that help push you and help remind you you’re great.”

When reflecting on the early days of her career, she starts to laugh. “I remember this funny memory of me wanting to sing in front of people. I found this random open mic in St Kilda and I made my best friend come with me. It was just these really old, drunk, I don’t know, like, 60-year-olds yelling at me like ‘Yes! You’re good!’.”

A lot of the lyrics in We Still Young reference the mind – losing it, fucking with it and the solitude we can find within it. I ask her whether she thinks there’s a benefit to leaning into your internal world during your twenties.

“It depends. I feel like our mind is such a scary place sometimes. So for me personally, I’m grateful that I can do music and write about it and kind of let it out with music. I think it depends on your mindset. But I think one thing I would say is, as long as you have a place to express it, whether it’s like art or you’re talking to someone, then definitely.”

As much as the EP explores what’s going on internally, it’s also focused on living in the now. Finding balance, navigating work and relationships and the sacrifices we make to achieve our goals are all explored across the five tracks. Pania is undoubtedly driven – her year so far has included supporting Grammy-nominated artist Kehlani on her tour, being unveiled as Spotify Australia and New Zealand’s latest Radar artist and selling out the Sydney Opera House.

Big experiences like these can change an artist’s life, so I was curious to know how Pania’s relationship with herself has transformed after the mammoth year she’s had and the completion of her EP.

“I think every time I write music, I learn about myself because sometimes I don’t process things until a lot longer after, like, until I’ve heard the song that I’ve written about a certain situation, so… it definitely helps me process things and learn what exactly I was feeling in that moment. Every time I listen to my music, it makes me sad because I’m like ‘Wow, that’s so real’. It helps me grow, I guess, and learn more about myself and how I feel.”

After all our chat about the mind and processing feelings, I have to ask her: does she journal? “Yeah, I don’t journal at all,” she replies, to my surprise. We both laugh. “It’s actually something that so many people tell me to do but I’ve always seen music as my journal.”

To listen to Pania’s EP We Still Young, head here.