Do we like Kimbra?
Our score: 7 out of 10. Clean on harm and decent on the good-person side, but little of her record is recent or detailed, so 7 rather than higher.
Kimbra Johnson grew up in Hamilton, New Zealand, and started writing songs at ten. She signed with an independent Melbourne label at 19, and at 21 her vocal on Gotye's Somebody That I Used to Know turned into a worldwide hit. She wrote, produced and arranged her own debut album, Vows, so she was never just the voice on someone else's smash.
On scandals, there's honestly nothing to tell. Searches for court cases, lawsuits and allegations against the singer turned up nothing from established outlets. The only gossip around is from content-farm and French celebrity sites, which is tabloid territory and not worth repeating.
Now the harm check. In a 2018 chat with Star Observer she called the progress on marriage equality in Australia fantastic, and said Pride festival crowds are among her favourite to perform for. She also said she's grateful her queer fans have stuck with her as her music has changed. We found no statement from her on trans issues either way, and no harmful company in the sources we read, so that part is quiet rather than proven.
Her politics show up in her art. In 2019 she told Salon she wrote a song soon after marching in her first protests, and she pointed to the Women's March and Black Lives Matter as people uniting around shared ideals. It's a sincere, slightly earnest take, which is about what you'd hope for from a pop artist.
The real good stuff is modest but genuine. In 2013 she donated her first electric guitar to be auctioned for Hospice Waikato's fundraising dinner. Her 2023 album A Reckoning was an independent release she talked about as her way of understanding her own frustration and anger, rather than burying it.
So: would we support her? Yes. The honest caveat is that most of what's on the record is from 2012 to 2023, and we found no recent news or positions on bigger political flashpoints. Nothing found is a red flag, and what is there leans kind.