The sleeve notes for ‘Whiti’, Toni Huata’s third album, released in 2010, describes the lushly presented CD as ‘… a rainbow of styles that take you on a blissful journey through haka dance rhythms, acoustic roots, urban pop grooves to emotional ballads’. With her fourth album the Hastings-born songstress continues the rainbow approach, the lead role on ‘Hopukia’ taken by a dub-electronica aesthetic, directed by two of our better-known rhythm-oriented musician/composers. Martin Pepperell spoke with this prolific and passionate Maori language recording artist.

Several years ago, internationally lauded singer and stage performer Toni Huata was working on a show with choreographer Louise Potiki Bryant. Louise’s husband, Paddy Free of Pitch Black, was handling the music. Speaking from her home in Hautere, near Wellington, Toni reflects on her feelings while watching him perform.

“When he came on, I just noticed how intricate but sensitive his music was to that project. It captured an element of spiritualism and ambience as well as, when needed, those earth rhythms and tribal rhythms and dance rhythms that were required for the whole project. I was really impressed by that, and in the back of my mind I thought, I’d really like to work with Paddy one day.””

Over the course of last year and early this year, Toni had the opportunity to do exactly that, while creating her fourth album ‘Hopukia’ a suite of bi-lingual dub and electronica songs, with production divided between Free and another good friend of hers, celebrated percussionist and composer Gareth Farr.

Released in late July, ‘Hopukia’ impressively debuted inside the NZ album chart’s Top 10, granting Toni her first ever chart success. She has already taken the record and its associated live show to the Pacific Festival of the Arts in the Solomon Islands, finding as she in past tours of Europe, America, Australia and the UK, a strong degree of love and support for her musical vision.

‘Hopukia’ follows three well produced, and beautifully presented contemporary Maori language recordings, which have seen her become well received on the international world music circuit. A hairdresser in a former life, Toni Huata (Ngati Kahungunu, Rongowhakaata) also tutors in voice, movement and stage craft. She says she has had a passion for dance music and electronica stretching back to her younger years.

“I love the energy of instrumental beats,” she says. “You can dance and zone out, go into your own world and allow the energy to flow around you. Freedom is what we all seek, and that is what that music does, and I love it.”

With ‘Hopukia’, Toni saw these structures and forms as the perfect support to a thematic concept she had developed.

“Hopukia means ‘to grasp or capture’,” she explains. “I am always inspired by my family, and that word come from the family proverb, ‘E rere e tu huata hopukia, E ere e te manuka tomokia’. That is how we got our surname. So I wrote three songs with that concept and that idea in mind. One [Whakaaha] was about my ancestor Whakaaha, who caught the huata spear in mid flight [during a battle] and saved his leader Haenga. Through doing that in his short but very brave life, we received our surname Huata.”

Together with Gareth Farr she wrote another song called Hopukia Te Tao, about what the concept of Hopukia represents for herself and her family.

“I look at my family and a lot of them are go-getter type people, they make their dreams a reality. So with the song I wrote it with that in mind. Even how I relate this to my own family and my own children. It is about fighting for them if you have to. Being brave if you have to speak up, not sitting on the fence, actually choosing and making choices in your life.”

Rounding out a foundation trilogy, she created a piece called A Muri Ra, which is essentially wishes of well-being for her descendents, the environment and the future. Adding in seven other songs of strength, love, unity and growth, between writing sessions with Farr, studio sessions with Paddy Free and work with plenty of other session musicians and friends, Toni was able to release a record which, as with her past albums, marks a moment in time for her.

“Paddy and Lou[ise] live in Piha, so he just brought his portable studio down to my place in Hautere. It was quite funny because Paddy and Lou live in a lovely lush beach area, and so do we. The environments where the album was mixed, mastered and created have all the beauty of nature and the elements. Paddy came down for five one-week sessions. It was awesome working with him. He is a very generous person. A very joyful person. I think we had a good synergy. We’re actually going to do another single shortly for Maori radio.”

Similarly, she speaks fondly of Gareth Farr, someone she has worked with on and off since they both worked on Tanemahuta Gray’s musical theatre show, Maui: One Man Against the Gods.

“Gareth is a composer in the truest sense of the word,” she says. “He composes everything from the vocal score to the music. He knows where my voice shines best in terms of pitch and everything. I think he can just capture the seed of my emotions. We’re good friends, we make each other laugh. He is a really hard case person to work with. It is always fun working with him and he works quickly, and is a very talented person, so the relationship will definitely continue.”

Older, more experienced and nowadays a fully engaged parent, for Toni, the goalposts of success have been shifting since her third album ‘Whiti’ (which was dedicated to her children). Speaking in early October 2012, she defines the end game as follows:

“It is about making your dreams happen in a good way. Making sure the people that you work with are people that are your friends, your family, and at the end of the day that you do it so that you are still respectful of them. You treat other people well and others will treat you well. I suppose it comes with a bit of maturity and experience as well.

“You might be a solo artist but you never ever do something alone. It is a group effort. It is a family effort. It is for everyone involved. For me it is important to always remember that. I always just look at the joy of everyone coming together with their talents for a purpose that is bigger than any one individual.”

www.tonihuata.com