When the sliding doors at Perth Airport open, welcoming Grace Barbé back home to her adopted city, she feels grounded, comfortable and keen to reconnect with her close-knit family and community.
Grace has maintained a gruelling yet life-affirming FIFO schedule of travel and live music performance across Australia and the world, since she began playing bass with iconic Australian funk and jazz band The Cat Empire in 2022.
The high-energy Melbourne outfit has been touring its 10th studio album Bird in Paradise across Australia in 2025, but not before completing tours across Europe, North America and Canada.
Grace, who joined the seven-member band as part of a creative reboot following the departure of all but two of its original members, is smack-bang in the middle of a highly productive career arc with the genre-diverse cult band.
And with three of her own studio albums, singles and remixes released between 2007 and 2023 and more percolating, she never loses sight of her solo music achievements, many of which she has experienced in and shared with Cockburn.
The talented ARIA-nominated World Music vocalist, songwriter and musician is a Perth favourite and spent several years living in Spearwood and the surrounding culturally diverse suburbs while creating her three albums to date, all featuring a mixture of Creole, English, French and Malagasy expressed via a fusion of afrobeat, reggae, pop, psychedelic rock and island rhythms.
She heads up the Grace Barbé Afro-Kreol band with Tanzania-based producer/musician Jamie Searle. They played to a full house at the Music at the Mem event celebrating Memorial Hall’s 100th anniversary in Hamilton Hill earlier this year.
A recipient of 13 WA Music Industry awards and a No.1 spot holder on the Triple J Unearthed Roots chart, Grace was inducted into our City’s inaugural Arts Hall of Fame this June and is a past Coogee Live performer, immersing excited crowds in her infectious world music beats.
Grace chatted with us in the last week of November while preparing to jet off to Victoria for The Cat Empire’s performance at the annual Queenscliff Music Festival, and we discussed what the concept of home meant to her.
“There’s something in the water in Perth. I feel grounded here. There’s my family, friends, my music community and a huge diversity of cultures, First Nations people and history and the food and music that comes with that. It’s where I really feel like myself,” Grace said.
As our latest Quintessentially Cockburn subject, Grace also shared her favourite spot in Cockburn – our treasured Spearwood Library, which will celebrate 50 years of operation in 2026.
“I lived in Spearwood for a few years and joined a crochet club at Spearwood Library. I met so many lovely local ladies and learned a lot about crochet which I am a bit obsessed with,” she said.
“I was so touched when the club member Joy Skinner gave me her folder of crochet patterns. I believe she passed away in the past couple of years and I treasure the memories of that time and the folder she gave me. They were all so caring and generous.”
The Seychellois-born musician, heavily influenced by her cultural roots and family, has lived in Perth for more than 30 years – since she was 16, after an initial six-year stint when she was aged six to 12.
“We returned to the Seychelles after mum finished her scholarship studies at uni and she immediately started the process to emigrate to Perth. We all wanted to come back,” Grace said.
“I was a bit confused and lost about returning to the Seychelles to live and was looking forward to getting back to Perth and all my friendships.
“I went to Nedlands Primary School in the 80s and I was one of the only brown girls there at the time.
“Dad would meet me after school to walk me home and he looked like such a cool cat, a black man with an afro and I remember people just checking him out because he looked different.
“I still have a couple of friendships from those early school days. By the time I returned to Perth as a 16-year-old my old primary school friends had moved on and I had to make new friends and start again.
“But I knew Perth was my home. It’s the landscape, the people, the sun. We are incredibly lucky here.
“When we got back it wasn’t long before I began performing music with the amazing Seychellois community.
“My mum, siblings and I had always gone to the Seychelles community events, dances and concerts so it was normal to join in these cultural activities.”
Grace studied music before working as a music tutor at schools in Perth and remote Aboriginal communities for many years.
She then completed a Commerce degree at Murdoch majoring in Entrepreneurship and Innovation, all while carving out an extraordinary musical career and loyal following.
“I remember being on a music tour over east about 10 years ago and getting back to my hotel room and trying to finish and then submit an assignment at 1am because it was due the next day,” she said.
“I did get it submitted, it’s hilarious looking back on it but I swore to never put myself in that situation again.”
And while a two-year fulltime Master of Education is on hold while her music career continues to blossom, Grace has wisely used her previous juggling experience to incorporate healthy and very necessary periods of rest to keep her in top performance shape.
“I do live in the moment, whether I’m at home or touring. When I’m performing there are so many new people and enriching experiences to take in and I love the stimulation. But it’s not a walk in the park, it can leave you exhausted if you don’t look after yourself,” she said.
“It’s got its rewards in the professional musicians I get to collaborate with, meet and build relationships with, the new places I get to see along with a range of new cultures and foods.
“But I’ve learned to cherish every moment with my family and especially Mum, when I do come back home. I crave the simple, quiet life, it balances out the noise I’m constantly surrounded by.
“I realised a long time ago how to rest and I have no problem resting. I try and do nothing and an important part of that is not feeling guilty about it, and to find a way not to overthink.
“It’s how I get ready for my next busy period away. It’s so important for my physical, emotional and psychological health.”
One of Grace’s favourite parts of coming home to Perth is her Mum’s Creole cooking.
“Cooking is one of Mum’s love languages. She’s always up and ready early in the morning has everything planned and pre-prepared before she goes to work as a teacher,” she said.
“My favourite Creole food would be grilled fish with chilli and onion, chilli sauce, papaya chutney and rice. I love the scent of the spices and it’s all home cooked, healthy and wholesome. It means I’m home.”
Grace hopes to get back to the Seychelles - an archipelago of 115 islands northeast of Madagascar off the eastern coast of Africa in the Indian Ocean - in 2027 after several years away.
“I don’t get there that often, it’s a beautiful piece of paradise but it’s not cheap to travel there, it’s a luxury destination. But Dad is there and my extended family so it’s firmly on my wish list.”
Images:
- Grace in orange shirt by David Le May
- Grace in yellow and blue headdress by Tracy Catherine Frawley
Article by Michele Nugent
Media & Communications Advisor
City of Cockburn
Telephone: 9411 3551
Email:
[email protected]