Ladi6, aka Karoline Tamati. Photo:
Opinion - When the single 'Like Water' hit the New Zealand top 10 in early 2011, it established Ladi6 as this country's major R&B star.
But that success was just one milestone in a long journey, and the song just one important track in the making of an essential New Zealand album.
Long before The Liberation Of... Ladi6, before there even was a Ladi6, Karoline Tamati was a teenage breakdancer and aspiring rapper; part of a small but fertile hip-hop scene in Christchurch which would also spawn vocalist Dallas Tamaira (Fat Freddy's Drop) and the rapper Scribe (who is Tamati's cousin).
She caught national attention in the late '90s as a member of Sheelahroc, an all-female hip-hop trio with a feisty single, 'If I Gave U The Mic'. But it was meeting fellow Christchurch musician Brett Park, known to most people simply as Parks, that set her future course.
He asked her to join his band Verse Two. Though Verse Two would not last much beyond a couple of singles, the Tamati/Park collaboration was just beginning, and Karoline - who up until that point had not even really seen herself as a singer - began writing lyrics, hooks and choruses to Parks' beats and melodies.
Over the next few years there would be stints singing and touring with Scribe, Shapeshifter and Fat Freddy's, but it was the songs she and Parks fashioned together that formed the basis of her first solo album, Time Is Not Much.
Released in late 2008, the album announced the arrival of a major artist. Ladi6 toured extensively with a great band including drummer Julien Dyne, and wanting to capitalise on the momentum they had gained, Ladi and Parks were determined to get a follow-up made quickly.
By this time they had a young son, Philli, and had returned from their various travels to the familiar environs of Christchurch. But that familiarity was failing to inspire them musically. Ladi6 had already spent time in Germany touring with Fat Freddy's Drop, so she and Parks upped sticks and headed for Berlin.
'Bang Bang' is the track that opens The Liberation Of Ladi6, and it is loaded with hooks, from its hand-clapping rhythm to its vocal choruses which play tag with a lead vocal that seems to be part invitation, part challenge.
Photo: Supplied
'Koln' has all the strengths of the Ladi/Parks collaboration on full display: a propulsive dance beat with a bit of rhythmic tension and plenty of space for Ladi to weave her multiple vocal parts.
The track also features a notable contribution from Fat Freddy's trumpet player Toby Laing.
A crucial part of the German experience was working with Sebastian Weiss, a Munich-based DJ and producer who records and performs under the name Sepalot, and with whom they had already established a personal and musical connection.
Ladi's vocals were recorded in Sepalot's Munich studio. He would also produce the album's hit song 'Like Water' which was built around one of his beats, as well as several other tracks.
The album's closing track, 'Squid', seems to look ahead. With one of those grooves that seems to push and pull against its own pulse, it suggests the influence of the great beatmaker J. Dilla, in whose Detroit studio Ladi and Parks would work on their next album, Automatic, while Parks' synthesisers sweep and slide around Ladi's defiant vocal.
Detroit would be another adventure, and maybe the subject for a future programme. But The Liberation Of... Ladi6 will always be an essential part of the Ladi6 story and - though it was largely recorded in Berlin - an essential New Zealand album.
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