There's something instantly telling about where an artist chooses to have a conversation. For Will Gao and Olivia Hardy - the sibling duo behind Wasia Project - it's Barshu, a beloved Sichuan restaurant tucked into London's Chinatown. Warm, a little chaotic, and very good at feeding a crowd. Which, if you know their music, tracks perfectly.
The pair sat down with i-D to talk through the things that shape them: their sound, their shared heritage, and the particular experience of being Wasian - a term that brings together West Asian, East Asian, and mixed identities - at a moment when those conversations feel more present than ever.
A sound built from two worlds
Wasia Project's music has always sat at an interesting intersection. Will and Olivia grew up navigating dual cultural identities, and that experience doesn't just inform their lyrics - it filters into the texture of everything they make. There's an emotional directness to their work that feels genuinely personal, the kind of specificity that tends to resonate far beyond the people it's immediately about.
That's part of what makes the Wasian conversation so interesting right now. It's not a monolithic identity - it's a starting point for talking about belonging, about what gets inherited and what gets reinvented, and about the particular in-between spaces that mixed-heritage people often know intimately.
Siblings who actually get along
Working with a sibling is either a recipe for disaster or a kind of creative shorthand that's hard to replicate with anyone else. For Will and Olivia, it's clearly the latter. There's a ease to how they talk about each other and their process - the kind of thing you can't fake and definitely can't manufacture in a studio with a stranger.
The overordering at Barshu feels like a metaphor worth noting. When you're comfortable, when you're with someone who knows you, you order generously. You don't second-guess. That same energy seems to run through how Wasia Project approaches their work.
Why it matters now
Conversations about mixed identity in music often get flattened into trend pieces, but what Will and Olivia are doing feels more grounded than that. They're not positioning themselves as spokespersons - they're just two people making honest music about their actual lives, which happens to resonate with a lot of other people figuring out similar things.
In a moment when questions of identity and representation in British music are genuinely evolving, Wasia Project is a worthwhile act to pay attention to. Not because they're ticking boxes, but because they're asking real questions - and doing it over very good dumplings.
Read the full interview at i-D.
