Ladi6 has been through a lot since releasing her award-winning Royal Blue 3000 EP seven years ago.
With a long-awaited new album in the works, and a national tour, the award-winning Kiwi artist talks to Karl Puschmann about how it all came together, and what life delivered since the last Ladi6 release.
We’re supposed to be talking about Karoline Tamati’s new music.
Instead, the singer more widely known as Ladi6 is discussing life and death, grief and healing, surgery and psychiatry.
It has been seven years since she released the award-winning Royal Blue 3000 EP and she’s experienced a lot of life - and, sadly death - in that time.
All of which has greatly impacted Tamati and her art.
“It worried me how I was going to talk about it,” she admits. “Like, what was I going to say? Was I going to be truthful or just make some shit up?”
It would have been easy for her to fib her way through the promo machine. I wouldn’t have known if she’d left the more difficult parts of her story out.
She could have stuck to her new album’s easygoing original inspiration and left out all the grief and the pain that massively changed everything.
“But I’ve never been one to make shit up,” she sighs.
“I’ve always been one to just tell it as it is and hope that through that, people will get it. Because we all go through the same things, you know?”
In 2018, Tamati and her musical collaborators, husband/producer Brent Park, and producer/keyboardist Brandon Haru began work on the follow-up to Royal Blood 3000.
The goal was to make a collection of bangers to shore up perceived gaps in their live show. The album was to be called Robes.
“The idea was we were going to make the whole record in our robes,” she laughs.
“It was going to be one of those late-at-night things or schlumping around all day in our pyjamas making this record. But it didn’t end up like that.”
Then she looks down and quietly says: “My mum passed during Covid”.
It was in the opening days of the lockdown. It upended Tamati’s world and ended the Robes concept.
With gallows humour she jokes: “It ended up being depresso-robes”.
Her mother’s passing from kidney disease came on the heels of two already tough years which saw the singer needing multiple throat surgeries, suddenly losing her cousin Lily and being airlifted to hospital after going into anaphylactic shock after a bee sting.
“We wanted it to be a party record, but when my mum passed, I couldn’t get out of the thought of wanting to write about it and all the things that came after that,” she explains.
“My songwriting style is so cathartic. I can’t get away from it. I can’t pretend to write about something else. It’s just not possible. I wish I could. I wish I was one of those writers who’s like, ‘I’m going to write a happy song about penguins,’ but I’ve never been able to do that.”
Because of the lockdown, her mother’s funeral had to be delayed.
This caused a lot of extra stress and she describes organising the funeral and burial as “a mission,” that left a “big crack” in her immediate and extended family.
Musically, the album is a party record, but lyrically “the record is heavily influenced by a lot of drama and hard, tough stuff,” she says.
Not that you could tell on first listen. The party DNA of Robes strongly remains as the collection of electro-soul songs is filled with glossy, arpeggiating synths and dancefloor-ready, house-inspired beats.
“I tried to make it into a transformative thing, like coming out the other side,” she smiles. “Like a joyful lift that connects with the uptempo beats. We wanted it to be this upbeat record that brought people joy. I describe it as, ‘Crying on the Dancefloor’.”
Those two dots of partying and grieving couldn’t be further away to connect, but somehow, Tamati has done it on the currently untitled album. But doing so was “super difficult,” because she and Park would argue about everything.
“He takes care of the dance floor bit and I take care of the crying and together we fight and bicker until it merges. But he’s a genius, and Brandon’s a genius, so those two geniuses just get in there and go, ‘Oh God, she’s writing about that emo stuff again... How are we going to make it a 120 BPM song?’.
“But they figure it out. They always get there in the end. They always give me the goods.”
Then she laughs and says: “They just have to deal with my emotional bullshit. And they do very well”.
It makes the album a catharsis you can dance to. Its creation helping Tamati process her grief.
“I’ve processed it completely. I literally feel like I’m all processed,” she smiles.
“I’m not harbouring any leftover feelings. I’m through the other side and happy where I landed. It’s that transformative resilience thing when you come out of a real tough time, I feel right there. It’s all good.”
The album’s message, she says, is a simple one; bad shit happens but it gets better.
That’s something she had to say herself - and hear herself saying it - to believe it.
As a process, it worked.
“Now that I’ve sat with the record I can feel the sadness that I had and I can feel me breaking through it,” she says. “I can feel those moments on the record.”
Sometimes, it’s life that changes you. Other times, it’s you who becomes the agent of change. Amid life upending Tamati’s world, she decided to reclaim some of her power.
Two years ago she signed up for a psychology course and began a counselling degree. She goes into her third year of study next year. She says it’s a way of reconnecting with her whanau and community.
Her parents were both youth and social workers, and her four siblings all work in the helping field. Wanting to help is in her blood.
“Part of the reason why me and Scribe [her cousin] even became artists is because my parents as part of their social work held holiday programs where they taught us how to sing, dance and act in plays.
“A big chunk of why I am an artist is because of these programmes that my parents were putting on for the whole neighbourhood. I’ve been raised around the helping community my whole life.
“Me veering off into music was an anomaly,” she says.
Tamati’s been on placement this year at the Auckland Women’s Centre and says it’s been the “most absolutely fulfilling work I could ever imagine myself doing”.
“It’s something that feels close to my heart. Being able to join somebody through their toughest time is an incredible privilege. I feel very lucky to have been able to do it.”
Then she pauses for a second, and says: “It’s so starkly different to being a singing rock star. There’s so much superficialness when it comes to the whole entertainment industry.
“I try my best to keep away from it, but you can’t help it. You’re still around it.
“This work is the antithesis to that, Counselling with somebody, walking with them through a tough part of their journey. It’s something so natural to me. I feel very lucky to have found two occupations in life that I love.”
Because she’s incapable of separating art from life, she knows her new vocation will work its way into her songwriting. She’s unsure how just yet but is certain it absolutely will.
“There’s no getting away from that,” she says. “But I’m excited to be steeped in reality rather than floating away on some disconnected buzz.”
After being away for so long she’s also looking forward to connecting with fans again.
The album’s first single, the shimmering, summery, synth-driven tune, Alofa, drops on Thursday, November 7 with her national Alofa: The Heartbeat tour beginning in Christchurch, the very next night.
There’s still a small wait for the album, which will release early next year.
“Even though I’ve written about the worst days of my life, I hope the transformative, hopeful aspect connects, because that’s how they feel,” she says.
“It’s a danceable record and a summertime, fun record. I really do hope that that’s the takeaway for everybody. You know, if you drill too close to home and get stuck in that morose feeling, it can swallow you up.
“I’m not down for that. I’ve seen it happen too many times in my life.
“I prefer this hopeful aspect,” she says. “But also joy. Being joyful.”
Then, she flashes a wide grin and says: “You know, in these kinds of tough times, joy is almost a rebellious f***ing act. So you’ve got to try and make it where you can.”
Ladi6′s new single Alofa is out on November 7.
The Alofa: The Heartbeat tour:
Karl Puschmann is an entertainment columnist for the Herald. His fascination lies in finding out what drives and inspires creative people.
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