What about me is someone gonna go, you're gonna make it? No, no one was thinking that.” What about me? You see this little chubby girl on the street with a keyboard, no shoes on, a broken piano. It's really put me in a position where I can say to people, you can do anything. “I knew that there was absolutely no way that a five-foot-five female, or a female in general, is ever going to have a career in basketball in my lifetime where they can live off it. And I just didn't want to fail,” she explains. “I think all that dedication and everything that I had in basketball to get my mind active under something that I wanted to achieve and I wanted to work hard at, had just crossed over into music. Through dedication and sheer determination she turned her dream into an imposing success, something she credits with the ethic and form that basketball taught her. Pissing off the regular buskers (white men with acoustic guitars), Watson would roll up to a spot, unload keyboards and a speaker, and blast out her bouncing, breathtaking pop. Spurred on by her desire to busk, she quit her job aged sixteen, pooled her money, travelled to Byron Bay and bought a camper van. How Watson transitioned from being a sales assistant in a Melbourne surf shop to an internationally renowned recording artist in three short years is the kind of story of which you can’t conceive - until it happens. And it honestly helped me through my childhood.” I went to a basketball school, where we trained three hours a day, in the middle of school. “I would do the beep test when I got home in the backyard, and then I'd run and I'd coach under-fourteen boys, and then I'd run from there and we'd go to basketball training for two hours until nine-o'clock, and then I'd go home. It helped me through everything,” she says. “My outlet growing up was basketball and honestly, growing up I needed an outlet more than I ever need one now. Alongside the hours she spent on music, basketball played a huge influence on her formative years. Watson taught herself piano, googling chords and learning their shapes across the keys. In terms of a lyricist, a songwriter and artist, that's who I would say pinnacle-wise for me, just the amount of lyrics and how smart they are.” There's so much more to him than his most popular albums.
With Macklemore, it was really more about lyrics and feeling, and it always has been with me. I think that's what I really gravitated towards growing up. “Christina Aguilera, she honestly is such an emotional singer. “They can just relay so much emotion in their voice,” she explains. As she moved into her teenage years, she found the music of Macklemore to be a particular inspiration. When she was younger, her favourite artist was Christina Auguelira who had Watson enthralled with her vocal dynamism. She said, ‘OK, sing with the group, but put your walkie talkie on and I'll listen in my ears.’ And I remember, she's like, ‘I think you can really hold a note, for a little kid.’ I guess I was like, eight or nine years old and from then on I remember just trying to sing all the time to everything.” “We had these walkie talkies, but they were headsets. “My eldest cousin Nat, she said, ‘Wait a second, Toni, do you just want to sing on your own?’ And I was like, ‘No, I don't want to sing on my own,’ she smiles. She remembers the pivotal moment that led to her discovering her voice, singing in the park with her cousins. She’s self-deprecating, warm and articulate as she recounts the roller-coaster that’s been the past three years of her life.Īs an adolescent, there were two passions in Watson’s life, music and basketball. Now based in her home state and holed up in a flurry of snap lockdowns, we chat over a crisp video call.
Watson grew up on Australia’s Mornington Peninsula, south of Melbourne.
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