VARIOUS ARTISTS / “Kiwi Soul Mixtape”

MP3 06 Kiwi Soul Mixtape.mp3 (60.86 MB)

Jumping down the soul hole again. Coming up in Aotearoa, aka New Zealand. Spotlight on four songs each from four young vocalists in the soul vein: Nat Rose, Ladi6, Iva Lamkum, and Mihirangi. Each has her own edge.

Must be something in the water on the island. Understandably reggae is big there, Bob Marley a demigod, but seventies soul, who would have thunk it?

Sometimes when I’m trying to unravel a particularly perplexing conundrum, I do what is sensible. I seek professional council. So I asked Mtume what he thought about this Kiwi Soul phenomenon.

Sure you can find soul singers all over the planet but down under in Aotearoa it seems as if soul is an indigenous movement. They don’t sound like they are imitating anybody. Although there have been a couple of cover albums, almost all of the music is original and the themes are intensely Aoteroan.

Neither Mtume nor I have come to any definitive conclusions but we both appreciate this South Pacific variant of the classic seventies soul sound. So check it for yourself and see what answers you come up with.

* * *

nat rose 03.jpg 
Natalie Rose Te Hei, aka Nat Rose, has an earth mother aura. Very much into her loving and promoting her homeland, she is both straight forward and complex as a musical artist.

She comes from a musical family and started touring internationally at age 18 but in 2000 she also completed a Diploma of Music at MAINZ Music College in Auckland.

“This music promotes a message of what it means to love, to appreciate the land and to understand your historical heritage(whakapapa) and most of all to celebrate life.”
—Nat Rose

 nat rose cover.jpg

Nat’s debut album, Golden Hour, is self produced and features original compositions. It’s very much a DIY (“do-it-yourself”) project on the one hand and a complex, mature musical statement. Although there are some hard backbeats and sharp horn riffs, overall this is a soothing album full of subtle touches and nuances in the arrangements. Two of what I first may seem typical love songs actually contain a bit of a twist.

Following the brief interview segment is “Reporua,” a love song to Aotearoa that might easily be mistaken for a song to her lover—well, actually it is except the beloved is the land rather than a two-legged man.
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Check that the interview segment opens with an Nat singing “Reporua” accompanying herself on acoustic guitar. It’s a long jump from the folksy voice&guitar acoustic version to the surging horn-laced arrangement on her album.

Her fourth song on the mixtape is for her young son, affectionally called “Peachey Pooh.” Once again in our popular music, such a naked confession of devotion is usually associated with a man/woman relationship rather than a mother/child connection. “Peachey Pooh” is both startling and refreshing.

* * *

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Karoline Tamati, aka Ladi6, is a music veteran who also comes from a musical family—indeed, her cousins include Malo Luafutu (“Scribe”), who is one of the leading NZ rappers and recording artists, and also include NZ soul vocalist Tyra Hammond.

"My whole entire family can sing, dance, play all sorts of instruments. I’m not even near the top three in my family for vocalists, but growing up in a family like that did help me in terms of performance. We performed for church and at holiday programs, even sitting around the kitchen table talking would turn into some sort of performance. That was happening all the time, and had a huge influence on me."
—Ladi6

Her professional career started ten years ago as an emcee/vocalist in the female hip-hop trio, Sheelahroc, which won a national award in 2001 as Most Promising New Act.

Beyond her emceeing skills, Ladi6 made a major name for herself guesting on other people’s sessions and working as a supporting artist. Over the years she was more and more in demand as a vocalist, including a European tour working in Fat Freddy’s Drop, which is the leading NZ band.
ladi6 cover.jpg 
Ladi6’s debut album Time Is Not Much was produced by Chris Faiumu, aka DJ Mu of Fat Freddy’s Drop. Mu is a monster musical director, reknowned for his fabulous MPC 2000 expertise, providing beats, bass lines and samples. Time Is Not Much reflects Mu on the bottom and Ladi6’s vocals on top. It’s a solid soul offering all the way round.

Ladi6 has honed her skills in over a decade of performing. She knows how to bring the energy. She also knows how to build a presentation, raising the heat over the course of the song. By the end of the song we want the groove to continue, on and on and on.
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“Question?” is a great example of how Mu and Ladi6 can take a medium tempo song and push the groove into a hard rocking, multi-layered workout.

The warmth of Ladi6’s voice supported by acoustic guitar both supported by Mu’s electronics expertise makes for an enticing concoction of complimenting forces.

You hardly notice there is no bass because the overall sound is so bass heavy. The mix could easily have overwhelmed the vocals but Ladi6 has the presence and the skill to stand out.

* * *

iva lamkum 02.jpg 
Small statue, heavy voice—deeper than whale doo-doo plus a streak of pirate rebelliousness running through her lyrics. She’s not necessarily “the best” voice of her generation but her’s is the voice I like the best. Something about those low, heavy feminine tones that rattles the right spots of my emotional anatomy.

Plus there is her spirit, forward from the get go. (Just thought of an analog; check her tonal texture is in the same neighborhood as Bahamadia.) I like her direct, undiluted approach to making music.
iva lamkum cover.jpg 
Her debut is a self titled, six cut EP that left me wanting more, much more. And after tracking down a video of an in-studio performance posted on a NZ radio site I’m convinced she is the genuine package. There she was working with a drums, bass, keys trio, performing a few songs from the EP and the evidence made it clear she is a strong performer.

The album has that same rootsy soul sound, most of the time it’s just a quartet of drums, bass, keys and guitar supporting Iva’s voice and tambourine/shaker—that must be some sanctified church stuff somewhere in her background the way she handles up on the shaker.

But again for me, what I like about what Iva does is far beyond the sound of her voice and her performance prowess. I like her attitude and her song writing. She has both poetry and politics in the way she hooks up her lyrics, but her approach is oblique rather than direct.

How do you train yourself in song-writing?
I start with a favourite word, normally a word that is relevant to my life. So if I see a word that’s mean as, I’ll pick up my guitar and strum a few chords and start plotting every word that I can think of in my little flash notebook, even if it doesn’t make sense. I just fi x it later. It’s not necessarily an easy thing for me to get a verse down, but usually grabbing a cup of tea, Weight Watchers biscuits, and a break will improve another writing session. Free-styling is another way I do music but sometimes I can’t remember it because I get carried away and forget to write it down … damn, shivers, that’s why they call it free-styling.”
—Iva Lamkum interview

iva lamkum 06.jpg 
Her ethnic background is Samoan and Chinese. In high school she shot hoops and were she not short may have pursued sports. Fortunately, music was also in her, offering an alternate path.

"Music is a problem solver. When I'm angry I listen to a lot of rock, I listen to gospel songs to keep me on track. Music has become more personal, it's a means of expressing myself in all situations. No matter what you do in life, music will inspire you."
—Iva Lamkum
* * *

 

mihirangi 02.jpg 
Mihirangi is the elder of the young soul singers. She is also the most forward as an activist. She is a major force in the environmental movement who has put her body on the line fighting to save the whales and for other environmental issues.
 
Her cultural work is uncompromising, anti-capitalist and resolute in being both an agitator for change and an advocate of personal responsibility. Just the titles alone of the four selections from her debut album, Kulcha Nation, make clear her vision and commitment to struggle: “Slave,” “Breathing.” “Kulcha Nation” and “World Citizen.”
mihirangi kulcha cover.jpg
The real surprise is that Mihirangi is as deep artistically as she is committed politically. All the voices you hear are her. While many, many singers have the ability to sing in different ranges and to over-dub to give a choral effect with beautiful harmonies, Mihirangi goes all of them one better—Mihirangi can do the multiple voice thing live in performance.

I know it’s hard to believe but go here and check out a video of one of her performances. She uses samples and foot pedals. Incredibly building a song from scratch in front of the audience, looping her voice, beat-boxing, harmonizing and adding percussive accents, and then layering the loops, sometimes six and seven samples deep, and then singing on top of the vocal bed.
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Most of the clips I’ve seen are either duo with a percussionist or solo with her equipment—all of them just leave you in awe.

Some of her work sounds like Sweet Honey In The Rock, all of her work is impressive. Getting hold of her work has not been easy but hopefully digital distribution on the internet will make it easier in the months ahead to acquire her music. Meanwhile, here is a taste on this Kiwi Soul Mixtape from Breath of Life.

Enjoy.

—Kalamu ya Salaam

 

Kiwi Soul Mixtape Playlist

 

01 Nat Rose talks about 'soul' - promo interview
nat rose 01.jpg
From Golden Hour by Nat Rose
02 “Reporua”
03 “I.h.i.a.m.”
04 “Wishful Thinking”
05 “Peachey Pooh”

 

 

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From Time Is Not Much by Ladi6
06 “Give Me The Light”
07 “So Far”
08 “Question?”
09 “Dark Brown”

 

 

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From Iva Lamkum EP by Iva Lamkum
10 “Kung Fu Grip”
11 “Bye Be Gone”
12 “Rain On Me”
13 “Water (Fine) 2”

 

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From Kulcha Nation by Mihirangi
14 “Slave”
15 “Breathing”
16 “Kulcha Nation”
17 “World Citizen”
 
 


 

This entry was posted on Monday, April 6th, 2009 at 2:34 am and is filed under Contemporary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.


4 Responses to “VARIOUS ARTISTS / “Kiwi Soul Mixtape””

Q Says:
April 6th, 2009 at 3:36 pm

Aww Man! I’m hooked. The mixtape is fine, but as you suggested finding ALL of the tracks even in a digital world is difficult. Not only that, but rewinding Ladi6 tracks within a file is…uhmm beyond difficult. If there was ever a case for a non-mixtape this would be it, LOL! Just based on the "re-running the track" effect alone. I’m not going to compare them to American Neo-Soul artists, but there is some clear equality in style, music, etc. with the likes of Erykah Badu, Lauren Hill, Jill Scott, Ledesi, Leela James, etc. I guess women in the NZ got something to sing about too. Nat Rose has a smooth R&B feel to her. Whereas Iva Lamkum and Ladi6 have some raw grittiness. Still, they are all soulful. Kulcha Nation, I wouldn’t necessarily classify as Soul–more folk-jazz, but the Sweet Honey in the Rock feel is ever present.

     kalamu sez     

to mix or not to mix? that is the question. my goal is to introduce folk to great music. want to encourage the audience and help the artist. on the technical side, the way our site is set up, i use one download per category. so should we have one separate track available for download or a mixtape. it’s a difficult question sometimes.

this week in the classics, we only have the ahmad jamal track, mainly because all the other tracks are easily available. in the covers section, i started to just feature faith pillow but then i checked that getting the dionne farris was EXPENSIVE (if you could find it), so i figured: put it in a mixtape and then folk who really, really want it, got it.

and the kiwi soul stuff, well, i virtually guarantee most folks are not going to be able to get all the tracks unless they are relentless and web-tech savvy.

another fine point, since you brought it up. the mixtape is not just one track after another. in addition to figuring out the sequence and putting in extras (such as the radio interview snippet—don’t ask how i got that! it would take too long to explain), but in addition to the aforementioned, i also do quite a bit of cross-fading to make the tape smooth, but of course that means someone  trying to isolate individual tracks will find it damn near impossible. ah, the joys of choice.

but anyway, glad you enjoyed the kiwi soul part 1 (oh–see what you done, you made me tell on myself. yes, mes amies there will be a part 2). stay tuned. to be continued…

 


rich Says:
April 7th, 2009 at 2:05 am

great to see the local sisters represented, kiwi soul is indeed alive and well. i’m not working for the site, but for music hunters chasing down these sounds, check out chaos music – a good online home for kiwi and australian music


Jackie Says:
April 7th, 2009 at 11:42 am

I just wanted to thank you for this mixtape (and all the others). I’m sitting here just listening and thinking how much I value this site for introducing me to artists and ideas. Some artists I knew about (but maybe not the information you presented), others I had no idea they existed but now I want to find them. I find myself saying, “Huh, I had no idea this was going on.” And that is a good thing.


Mtume Says:
April 14th, 2009 at 4:45 pm

New Zealand, huh?

We’ve been through this before with Fat Freddy’s Drop and Trinity Roots and Hollie Smith, etc. so I won’t get back into the conversation about how and why this happened. (‘This’ being so much soul originating from a small island in the south Pacific.) And really, it isn’t necessary to talk about it because the music damn near speaks for itself.

I liked every track I heard from Ladi6 and Nat Rose and I liked one or two from the other sisters as well. I guess I shouldn’t still be surprised by now, but you know what? I still am.

New Zealand, huh? New Zealand….


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