Tali: Why aren't there more women wanting to be MCs?

Taranaki-born MC and singer Tali (Natalia Sheppard) says her new album Empress Era is a love letter to women going through perimenopause "in this crazy, chaotic world”.

While her last project was "a middle finger to the patriarchy", Tali's new songs reflect where the musician is at in life right now - "technically middle-aged and perimenopausal, but still out there performing and recording".

"What does that look like, and how does that feel to be somebody my age and in a world that values youth much more? But it's undeniable that I'm still able to do what I do and do it well," she tells RNZ's Music 101.

The art of MCing (or emceeing) involves delivering rhymes and wordplay to "create a connection between a DJ and the audience", Tali says.

While the UK has a really "healthy scene" of women who do it, she is puzzled that she's such a rarity here.

"I don't know why there aren't more women wanting to be MCs. It is really hard, but … we're women. We're good at things. We can do anything, you know."

Part of the problem is that local drum and bass promoters see MCs as "an extra expense", Tali says.

"I get it, but also I think in doing that, in sort of phasing out MCs, they're destroying a part that is really intrinsic to the culture of drum and bass, and that is creating a connection between the DJ and the audience.

"It's really unfortunate, and I'm hoping that that will change. It can only really change if promoters actively support more MCs and make spaces that people who want to do that feel they can move into."

The seven songs on Empress Era emerged over the last couple of years while Tali was doing her usual thing of journaling as a form of catharsis. 

"It was just sort of getting out what I needed to say and using it as a form of healing or a balm. Living in such a chaotic time and seeing so much of what's going on in the world, and being an empath and being so deeply, profoundly affected by that.

"Music is kind of the only way that I can not just get out what I'm feeling, but use it as a way to tune out of that and look more inwards. Because if I look outwards too much, it all becomes just too much."

For Tali, collaboration is one of the "greatest joys" of making music, and also one of the best ways artists can push themselves to move outside of their creative boxes.

A fan of Nathan Haines, she recruited the jazz legend to play saxophone on Empress Era, and had "really great energy" singing with Jordan with a Why (Jordyn Rapana), whom she met a few years ago at the Silver Scrolls.

The album was written and recorded at Tali's home studio in Auckland and mixed by Tiki Taane. She produced all of its songs apart from 'Life on the Line' (produced by Canadian producer Polaris), which she had to include because it was such a "beautiful banger".

'Life on the Line's warning about how we all live on our phones now is something Tali says she's "definitely guilty" of. On a recent holiday, though, she did get to detach.

"Not having my phone at the forefront of everything I did really made me realise how much I don't actually need it."

As 'Take Em to Church', MC Tali will perform on the DJ stage at Synthony in the Auckland Domain on 21 March alongside Tauranga DJ MissB.