Sidney Phillips’ Soundcloud profile picture is of Korean pop group JYJ member, Kim Jae-joong. “Exo-l 4 lyfe” in bio. References to The Sopranos, Skins, South Park, and Breaking Bad can be found across Sidney’s musical releases: her Twitter, Soundcloud, and Instagram presence teeters on the edge of irony, relevance and personal sincerity. Something about posting online doesn’t always lend itself to words in person.

Crowned as Independent Artist of the Week, Sidney Phillips joined Giana Festa and me on Deep Web yesterday, fresh off a flight from Brisbane, and before their evening show at the Oxford Art Factory. 

Despite the title of their newest album, I’m so Tired of Being Staunchly, Sidney appeared staunch: zipped windbreaker, TNs, and – if lyrics are any clue at IDing these but no promises – True Religion jeans. A little shy and further softened by sipping on a Binggrae BTS J-Hope banana milk, Sidney discussed her fascination with Effy from Skins, “low-attention span music,” the formation of the stealthyn00b collective, and her meandering journey into beatmaking.

A key member of the stealthyn00b collective (the current lineup featuring lil ket, jx333, Skratcha, twinlite, ggabriel, and luvlxckdown), Sidney’s music fronts an emerging era of Australian digicore and rap, no doubt pushed forward by an air of eternal onlineness that transcends the more isolating music scene of Brisbane, Queensland.

“I feel like there’s just like more people in Sydney and Melbourne. If you live [here], you’re going to be getting more shows. There’s more of an audience for the sort of music. There’s not many people making music like the music that me and my mates make in Brisbane.”

Three months ago, the stealthyn00b Soundcloud shared ‘Sidney Phillips – A part of me (cover)’, a cover of Welsh pop punk band Neck Deep’s 2012 single. Like a significant portion of 20-somethings, Sidney Phillips was trying to form a pop punk band ten years ago (hard to resist likening this to the metal band project that prefaced the relationship of Drain Gang collaborators, bladee and Ecco2k). 

“The first band I really got into was Fall Out Boy, but then I never really made any of that kind of music,” she recalls. “And then I started listening to Vaporwave. And I was 12, and I was like, this is so cool. I made some Vaporwave, and then it wasn’t until I started listening to rap music that I was like, I want to make rap music.”

On the formation of stealthyn00b – “It used to be stealthyn00b dash something like six, seven, eight, nine, four, two, one, three, two. We got it from a Xbox gamertag generator,” – Sidney shares a familiar origin story characterised by a Discord server, Team Fortress 2, voice chat, and a shared password Soundcloud account. 

“I met old stealthyn00b mate Luis in grade eight through a mutual friend because he knew that we were both making beats.. We lived pretty close and then in grade 11, he made a Discord server. I met luvlxckdown… and I met twinlite.” 

“The original idea was like we’d make a SoundCloud page that a bunch of people have to log into and we’d say all the releases are by Stealthy Noob. So it was like 20 people had access to the page but after a while, nobody would post besides us.”

Stealthyn00b have come a long way since early collaboration, yet no short in regular output. Now locked into a stiff lineup of seven, it seems that the entering in and out of the collective is far less fluid – “Thankfully,” Sidney adds.

On signature tracks like “IGET in my pocket”, “Goon Kunt”, “Baccy Cones in a Holden”, Sidney’s not lost on the mundanity of living – “I work at the supermarket deli four…five nights a week,” she said laughing. “A good way to relax at the end of the day is smoke and watch South Park or smoke and watch The Sopranos,” she adds.

And on what it means to be staunch, she recalls a time her brother came home with a fresh polo jacket. 

“I was like, ‘Aw mad,’ and he was like, ‘Yeah, so staunch’. But yeah, I’m so tired of acting tough. My first few albums are just straight rap and I’m doing like sped up shit. And now I’m trying to embrace like a less masculine side of my music, and more of myself in my music. I’m so tired of being staunchly.”

Want to hear more? Listen to Sidney’s full interview up top, or stream I’m So Tired of Being Staunchly (Deluxe Edition) here: