Ladi6: 'I wear my heart right on my forehead’

On her upcoming record Le Vā, hip-hop soul singer Karoline Tamati (aka Ladi6) serves up a fresh set of dance tracks that celebrate the spirit of her late mum Fuarosa.

While the lyrics express grief, Tamati says the tracks themselves are energetic and enlivening thanks to her unique creative dynamic with musical partner and husband Brent 'Parks' Park.

"We want people to be dancing constantly and just feeling the vibe - not thinking about what I'm saying, just feeling the beats," she tells Music 101.

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Tamati and Park - who married in 2015 - work on their parts of the music separately, she says, and then “see what happens” when they bring them together.

“He's always pushing me to try and be less literal and more metaphorical, and I'm always pushing him to take what I have and just figure it out."

While she has “absolutely no interest” in how Parks interprets her lyrics musically, Tamati knows he won't lean into emotionality, let alone “chuck some violins on".

Growing up in Christchurch, Tamati says she and Park thought they were too “dumb” for academic study, but in recent years, they've both become keen university students - she is studying to be a counselling psychologist, while he has completed a Master of Arts.

“You get influenced by the environment, going, ‘Well, maybe we're just not those kinds of people. Those are the people who live in other suburbs, and that's cool for them, but we probably will get a job, help around the house economically, and then try and fork out a career for ourselves.”

Many people don't have the opportunity to learn the organisational and time management skills required to keep up at university, Tamati says.

She feels lucky that life as an independent recording artist had already equipped her in this way.

“You just have to put in the time to do the thing, get the grade, over and over and over again.”

'Alofa' by Ladi6:

Tamati says being able to offer empathy and support as a counsellor is her “favourite thing” because people need other people to get through life.

“I will walk with you through your stuff, and we'll connect, and we will figure out strategies to help us through or we'll just, you can dump on me, vent on me, tell me. I will help ... I'm basically with you, and we're just gonna walk through this."

It’s an honour to help another person develop awareness of themselves and improve their own lives, she says.

“It's such a beautiful and special moment to see things click together and know that they're like fully tooled up to go out into the world and face this exact same problem, but in a totally different way.”

For Tamati, songwriting is a way to transform her own difficult experiences into something hopeful while conveying a message of human solidarity.

"This happens to me, and it happens to you, and it happens to us all. This is how I found my way through, and this is what I think about this thing.

"I can't do anything but wear my heart right on my forehead to show everybody."

Fuarosa, who lived with Tamati and her family through years of treatment for diabetes, was covered in a beautiful tapa cloth on her deathbed and looked like an “absolute royal queen”, she says.

“There were a whole lot of really precious moments that came out of [her passing] that I can really hold on to and not be so overwhelmingly full of grief.”