"It Feels Like I'm Catching Up On A Pop Quiz That Everybody Has Studied For": DEVAURA On The Beauty Of Learning In Public

To say DEVAURA is “next up” is a vast understatement.

Taking in her credentials since she first launched her debut single KETAMINE in 2023, the motion that DEVAURA has generated over the last two years is nothing short of otherworldly.

The word of DEVAURA spread like wildfire after a momentous year for the artist in 2024, where she was crowned the Acclaim Magazine x PUMA Wildcard, won the FBi Radio SMAC Awards for Best Live Act and Next Big Thing, as well as the Justin Cosby Best Emerging Act at SXSW Sydney, sparking a buzz that was birthed from a stellar line of performances debuted at BIGSOUND 2024.

To see DEVAURA live was to attend a sermon unlike you’ve ever been to before, basking in the glory of an artist whose larger-than-life charisma resonated with anyone who walked through the door.

She kicked off 2025 by bouncing from state to state, playing Laneway Festival in Sydney to then playing Party In The Paddock in Tasmania on the same day. With subsequent appearances at WOMAD in Adelaide, Gaytimes Festival in Gembrook and a forthcoming performance in her home city of Sydney for Vivid, you begin to wonder how DEVAURA ever gets the time to decompress and lay her head down.

But the on-the-go hustle isn’t something that is tiresome, degrading or compromising; it’s divine timing. If there is a true reason DEVAURA was placed on this Earth, it’s to do exactly what she is doing.

Today, the artist releases her first body of work since she first came onto the circuit. It comes in the form of a 6-track EP titled Vol. 1 Learning In Public, the first of three projects she aims to release this year.

The EP is intimately autobiographical, allowing listeners to revel in DEVAURA’s internal monologue as she ponders on chaos, transformation, grief, identity and autonomy. It’s a radically liberating journey through self-forgiveness and empowerment, an echo of DEVAURA’s mission statement since she first emerged onto the scene.

Never been one to shy away from immersing her music in the confronting and chaotic details of her life, the EP doesn’t ask for your sympathy. Instead, DEVAURA’s deep-seated storytelling encourages you to open yourself up to love in order to witness the revolutionary euphoria that comes with doing so.

We caught up with the artist prior to the EP release to dive into life lessons, learning curves and fluctuations in life’s stability that created the essence of Vol.1 Learning In Public.

Obviously, a lot has happened over the last year and a bit. How do you feel about it all?

It feels like alignment. I feel like I have been doing a lot of new things, having new experiences, but I've always felt safe going through all of the motions and seeing the growth that me and my band have been going through. It's just a sign that we're doing something right. And that feels good. As somebody who is a recovering people pleaser, it feels good. It feels good because we're just showing up authentically and organically.

How did you break out of that people-pleasing habit? How have you been able to work for yourself rather than for other people?

When I realised that people pleasing is kind of almost like you come across as meek and humble, but it actually isn't, because in a way, you're almost trying to control a narrative a little bit – that you are this person, that you should be perceived in this particular type of way, and that you're not a threat. When I realised that regardless, people are going to treat you however they want to treat you, and it don't matter, then it don't matter how you show up, it don't matter what you do.

If people want to treat you like a bucket of crab legs that has been disposed of, they will treat you like that. And when I just realised you're not getting a good deal when you constantly feel the need to minimise how affected you are by other people and their actions, because, like, why the hell would I do that anymore? Don't get me wrong, I'm definitely, maybe overly aware of certain things, but I don't necessarily let it be the final factor, or the deciding factor for what I do or how I do things.

I guess knowing what you know now about the journey that you've been on, what kind of things would you tell 2023 DEVAURA who just freshly emerged onto the scene and jumped into it all?

People and opportunities will show you exactly what they are. If you just shut up and listen, people and opportunities show you exactly what they expect from you, and vice versa, and you're doing better than you think. That's what I would tell her.

Beautiful. You're on the cusp of dropping your debut EP, Vol. 1 Learning In Public. I want to talk about the title. What does that mean to learn in public, how does that resonate with you?

So, my background is kind of messy [and] a little traumatic. I was disowned at 16, and I was homeless for three years; I didn't really have a place that I found safe. I didn't really rely on friends and I didn't have family, not even an uncle, not even a distant relative that I could rely on to catch a break from any of the stuff that was happening.

And so, in 2021 -2022, post-lockdown, I finally got my own apartment. But I didn't leave the house. If I did, it was for work or for school. But the first time I went outside was for Yawdoesitall's show. That was the year of me actually leaving my house and intentionally being an active and willing participant in life.

And so I like to say that I'm three years old. I'm basically three in terms of just going outside, meeting people, and being open to new experiences. And so it feels like I'm catching up on a pop quiz that everybody's already studied for. But there's a beauty in the fact that I am learning in public.

The relationships I have and the family I have now, I made in three years. It's just been a process of learning to trust myself and also just that people are capable of being evil and wicked, but people are also capable of being really beautiful. People are capable of beautiful things. There's two sides to everything. So that's what learning in public is.

Another facet of the idea of learning in public is that, unfortunately, you have an audience too, or you have people watching you, and people praying on your downfall, or on the flipside, raising you up. How does it feel to know that you are now on a platform and people are watching?

I've been so caught up in my internal world trying to figure out my own stuff that I hadn't prioritised how people perceived me for a long time, and nor was I given the tools on how to do that in a way that was effective or healthy. And so now I'm just very aware that people don't owe you grace. People don't owe you understanding, either.

And so I am caught up in a transitional phase where I'm just like, if you have the ears to listen and you want to understand, I will give you that. But if you don't, then be about your business, and that's okay. I'm living in my internal world. And I also understand that there's going to be moments where there's going to be orbits that cross over, and if it's positive, great. If it's negative, we'll learn from it, and we'll flip it and do what we need to do.

That leads into my next question, which focuses on the dynamic or contrast between VERTIGO and MEET YOUR MAKER. I feel like both of these songs are sisters, but not twins. So let's talk about the DEVAURA on VERTIGO, and how that song kind of sits within the EP as a whole.

VERTIGO was intentionally put out first because I had felt like even though there were so many exciting things happening, there wasn't really. I don't think there was a solid understanding of what I had to say or wanted to say. Yes, enjoyment, yes, I don't take nonsense, all of that stuff.

But VERTIGO, for me and my crew, was very much a song about being honest about how I felt achieving all of these things or being thrown into these new experiences and doing everything for the first time. Like, you guys are clapping and excited, but I don't know if this is actually that good or if I'm doing it right. And that's what vertigo feels like. It's that feeling of rapid elevation. And for someone with my background, that's literally what the past year and a bit has felt like.

I wanted to make sure that the sonic elements in that track were reflective of how I wanted a body of work for me to be received. You are going to have the dynamics, the highs and the lows, a ballad, R&B, dance, pop, and hip-hop as well.

I guess, every track that you're going to hear from me, if you're really listening, you'll hear all of those influences. And I felt like VERTIGO was just like the gateway drug to kind of just lay the ground for everybody to just be like, ‘Hey, you might have heard this song, or that song, or heard about me from here,’ but let me give you another reintroduction to what our intentions are, which is to pursue with honesty.

And then on the flip side, take me through MEET YOUR MAKER. I read that it's kind of like a response to tall poppy syndrome. What has your experience been with tall poppy syndrome?

It's a battle of perception with tall poppy syndrome. Everyone thinks that they're smaller than somebody. Everyone thinks that there's something to aspire to. And I feel like there's this culture of if you're not happy with where you are and the pace at which you're going, then you're cocky, and you think that the work is done, when it's like hold up, we all just got here. We're all guests on this land, and we're all doing whatever it is that we feel is in alignment with our own personal stories.

My family and my crew have been really, really protective. I have not necessarily felt the full weight of tall poppy syndrome, maybe because I'm just not tuned into that as much because I'm very insular. But what I will say, as an observer of the scene and a friend to other people who are creatives, it's just this feeling that you have to play humble in order for people to like you.

It's infuriating to me; I don't like that. I don't enjoy seeing people feel like they need to congratulate themselves but also give themselves a backhanded compliment. So, it's a battle of perception. I don't enjoy it, and I also don't enjoy people who have been on the receiving end of that, then also going out and intentionally perpetuating that. Mind your business. Everybody's growing at their own rate, doing whatever it is that they're doing and whatever their motivations are. It is what it is.

It's such a deadly cycle, and it's refreshing to hear you talk about it in that respect. How do you keep reminding yourself, outside of the support that you have, that you were placed on this earth with a purpose?

It's the only reason why I make music. I knew from the jump that I wasn't doing it for a GEEDUP commercial. I'm not doing it for a JD Sports collab, and I'm not doing it to get into a club for free. And I say that all the time to my boys: no shade to any of those brands. The only reason I let any of the boys or any of my friends even convince me to release the first single was because I wanted to be an active participant in the world that I was in, and in the land that I was on, and the medium that I felt the most liberated, and that was music.

If it was writing, and initially it was when I was younger, it probably would have been that, but I had somebody that was in my immediate circle who guided me through that process. And so I'm not swayed by what another person feels like I should or shouldn't be doing with my own time, my own energy. You can't give me permission to do something that I initially had to give myself permission for.

When perception and people get in your ear a little bit, it can be distracting and it can be overwhelming, you become disillusioned by it. You're making art. You're serving it to somebody, and when it's released, it's no longer yours. But there has to be balance, and the only way you can maintain that balance is when you know what your intention is, and if your intention is something you actually believe and you actually move in, you're not gonna be swayed by the bullshit.

This EP is the first of three to come out this year. What can you reveal about the thread that connects these EPs?

Music has literally saved my life. It's what built my foundation, my core. Learning In Public has just been everything that's happened over the past couple of years for me, and I guess over this time of healing and refortifying myself. I've just analysed a lot of things, I've observed a lot of things about humans and how we interact with other people, and how we see the world. And so these next three projects will be kind of honing in on that.

I think they're all going to be personal, but it is very much speaking from my POV. And then Vol. 2, yes, you're going to be hearing from me, but it'll be very specific about how we relate with other people, and what we do when it comes to conflict and resolution, tension and release, all of those things. And Vol. 3 is [about] world views, very much to do with where do we find our place, and what do we do with the spaces that we're in.

Basically, the next three projects are a forced psychology 101 lesson. It's a social, cultural analysis on relationships. I'm learning so much, and I've met so many amazing people. And so as the projects continue to be completed and refined, I think the music's just going to be just speak for itself.

After the EPs are out and the run is done, what's next? Have you thought that far ahead? Or are you kind of just going to take it as it comes?

I am an overthinker. I have diabolical plans. I think as the release of all the projects come out, the view is becoming a lot clearer on how to go about certain things. But I will always say that the intention as a visitor and as a guest on this land is that I see myself in the imprint.

African immigration to Australia peaked in 2010, I came here in 2003, and so to not see anything that kind of sounds or looks like me in a way that is uniquely me would be such a shame, especially when I have the opportunity to do amazing things with amazing people. And so that's what the goal is, just to, if I can, leave my imprint in whatever way.

Whether that is working with other artists, whether that is learning more about how I can show up for other communities. But what I want is to live on this land and live on this land in a way that is symbiotic with everybody that is here with me. You cannot be a guest on this type of land and not strive to leave something great behind, something positive behind. The least you could do is try to make something out of nothing.

DEVAURA’s Vol. 1 Learning In Public is out not all streaming platforms. Check it out below.