Whirimako Black interview (2004)

NZ Musician October/November 2004 (Vol: 11, No: 8) By Mark Bell 

Whirimako Black


Whirimako Black and Justin Kereama making music of resonance and rare beauty.

Sure, it lacks the snap and crackle of pop, rock or hip hop, but world music, it could well be argued, offers more New Zealand artists a realistic chance of a viable long term international career. Whirimako Black almost effortlessly makes music which has already been shown to have a ready audience in the fast growing world music market.

This year Whirimako Black has gained a Te Waka Toi award for her role in advancing contemporary Maori music, was a finalist in the NZ Music Awards and became one of only a few songwriters to have two of her songs recognised as finalists in the APRA Silver Scrolls in the same year. She has recorded and performed with acclaimed world music act 1 Giant Leap at a pre-Olympic Games concert in Athens, had a song she co-wrote used in the hit movie Bulletproof Monk, worked on the soundtrack for a documentary, released her third album 'Tangihaku' and found time to record another 'Kurahana' due out in November.

When world music innovators Jamie Catto, a founder member of popular British dance outfit Faithless, and Duncan Bridgeman, a producer of some 30 years experience, began laying the foundations for their hugely successful trans-global audio-visual project 1 Giant Leap, Whirimako Black, and in fact New Zealand itself, were apparently nowhere to be seen on their 'must have/must do' list.

Their plan was to travel the world with a digital video camera and laptop computer, filming and recording a wide variety of cultural events and performances to incorporate into their instrumental tracks. This enabled them to feature such diverse artists as Michael Stipe and Asha Bhosle on the same track, without the two having to meet each other or even inhabit the same continent.

With a mission statement of 'celebrating the unity within diversity', it was an ambitious project that took them through Senegal, Ghana, South Africa, Uganda, India, Thailand, America, Europe and ultimately Australia and New Zealand.

The resulting DVD received two Grammy nominations, 'The Making of 1 Giant Leap' was broadcast on the National Geographic channel, while the soundtrack proved a resounding hit within the world music scene. Amongst the big names adorning the back cover such as Stipe, Baba Maal, Maxi Jazz (Faithless), Robbie Williams, Neneh Cherry and Michael Franti, you'll find Whirimako Black, one of the unexpected finds of the project that made it such an adventurous and rewarding album for the creators and audience alike.

As Black has recently returned from an intense three day trip to Athens, where she performed with 1 Giant Leap at pre-Olympic festivals as well as writing and recording new material for the next 1 GL album, it seems the globe-trotting Brits know a good thing when they hear one. With a new album of her own 'Tangihaku', out recently through Mai Music, a second due in November, and a third planned for early next year, it seemed like a good time to find out more about this enigmatic and internationally respected singer/songwriter.

It's often surprising to find out how momentous events in an artist's career can be triggered by funny little twists of fate, and Whirimako Black's giant leap into the world music stratosphere is no exception. It seems Catto and Bridgeman were in NZ to meet the respected taonga puoro (traditional instrument) maker and player Hirini Melbourne (now deceased) and to receive their almost obligatory Maori tattoo (see also Robbie Williams, Ben Harper, Michael Franti et al) at Inia Taylor's Grey Lynn parlour.

As Black, who herself wears a traditional moko, notes at one point over coffee and biccies at her home on Auckland's North Shore, Maori culture is "the bomb" at the moment overseas.

She takes up the story: "Apparently it was six or seven hours duration of this carry-on getting a tattoo, and while they were having the tattoos done he (Taylor) played them some music that he thought would give them that space in their minds, put them in the zone. So he played my album (her 2001 debut 'Hinepukohurangi - Shrouded in the Mist'). I'd only just given him that album about two weeks before these guys had turned up. So you just never know - it was real unlikely. I heard something like that, that I would get some offers from very unlikely places, so that was one of them."

Although Hirini Melbourne eventually proved to be unavailable, over the next two weeks Catto and Bridgeman attempted to find the owner of the beguiling voice from the tattoo session, eventually locating Black only the day before they were due to leave the country. Someone, she agrees, was definitely smiling down on her that day.

The track she wrote and recorded for 1 Giant Leap, Ta Moko, was subsequently licensed for worldwide use in the movie Bulletproof Monk and has since appeared on several compilation albums. She also had a hand in writing the Stipe/Bhosle track The Way You Dream.

There's been plenty of accolades along the way, with 'Shrouded in the Mist' winning Best Maori Language Album at the 2001 NZ Music Awards, and 'Tangihaku' being nominated in the same category this year and earning the Te Waka Toi Creative NZ Award for Best New Work. Oh, and there's another trip to Europe pending to talk about 'Tangihaku' on the BBC's world music program.

It's been an amazing decade so far for the singer who, as a green talent contest winner, learnt her craft during the '70s churning out the soul, funk and r'n'b hits with tight Hamilton and Rotorua club bands. She eventually received an offer to join a band featuring members of the legendary Maori Volcanics, who also doubled as Howard Morrison's backing band.

It was a hot-house musical environment for a vocalist still too young to buy a drink at the bar.

"I learnt a lot from them, I learnt a lot about when to come in and when not to come in, and when to give the band their turn to have a bit of a show-off, and to stay in front really. But you know, I was a younger voice then and it was pretty easy really. A lot of what I do now is... sometimes when I'm on stage and look at ease, it's because of that experience."

Another recent achievement involved working with Zimbabwean musician Oliver Mtukudzi and the classically trained Jonathan Besser on the soundtrack for Jennifer Bush-Demac's documentary The Land of Our Fathers. The documentary was inspired by the discovery of film amongst the possessions left by Bush-Demac's late father, showing footage of her young life in Zimbabwe, while the music features lyrics in both Mtukudzi's native tongue Shoma, Maori (Black) and English.

"It was neat - something about when you're with live musicians all at the same time, all in the same room. It was all live; just done in the production assistant's boyfriend's home. It was a nice big room with trees outside the verandah and a kitchen right next door, and Steve Garden was there capturing everything."

And so to 'Tangihaku', released in May, a sparse and haunting work featuring te reo poems penned by her mother Anituatua and sister Rangitunoa, both of whom share Whirimako's passion for preserving and passing on the native language and culture to the next generation. I ask whether she sees her role as more of an educator, or a keeper of the tradition of oral story telling, than that of an entertainer.

"No, but there's a standard that I'm setting for myself singing in the language and also, no, I regard myself as a singer/musician, and it just so happens that I sing in te reo Maori, and at the time the te reo Maori came into my music I felt there was a real need for more clarity in the language," explains Whirimako.

"That was the whole musical mission - to strip it right back to the acoustic guitar which I love..."

To this end many of the arrangements have been slowed down to allow the lyrics space to 'breathe'.

"I'm very careful when I'm singing in te reo Maori to keep it nice and slow, so the clarity of the lyrics is there too, so it's not just a matter of doing it because I know te reo, but purposefully for the learners of the language so that they can hear the pronunciation, they can hear the fusion with the music."

The sisters' original music has been arranged for the album by the brilliant Auckland guitarist Joel Haines, whose acoustic guitar is accompanied by some subtle use of taonga puoro by Black's long-term collaborator Justin Kereama. The spaciousness of the backing tracks allows the vocals to attain the prominent position they undoubtedly deserve in the mix, but I can't help but wonder if there was any temptation to embellish the tracks further.

"No, not at all," she says. "That was the whole musical mission - to strip it right back to the acoustic guitar, which I love, acoustic guitar, vocal and played with feeling.

"I just kind of like the genre of music we've taken it to. It (the lyric) just meshes really nicely with the music. It's not something that's forced like you're trying to force a square into a circle. I realise I'll have to speed it up at some stage if I want to get into the dance scene, which I do, I don't really like to be boxed in, but being boxed in to a certain style of music, it always gives me a challenge to take it somewhere else."

Whirimako Black's next album 'Kurahuna' is already in pre-production, but this time it will be an unapologetic attempt to break through overseas, particularly in Europe. It will have a more elaborate production and elements of house, funk, classical and ambience. Ex-pat US producer Russell Walden is handling production duties, and once again the mystical tattoo shop seems to have a hand in that chance encounter.

"I met Russell Walden when the 1 Giant Leap guys came out last year to Helensville," she explains. "I was over at the tattoo shop because they were telling me, 'Hey, the guys are coming for a concert, will you be involved and grab some musicians for them?' which I did. It was a real hard one pulling everyone together for basically nothing, but it was a good production. I met him (Walden) at the tattoo shop and he was like auditioning for me, and it was real hard case because I didn't expect that. He pulled out his oboe and started playing to me and talking to me about how much he loves my music and how he'd like to do something with me."

A background check by Mai Music's Victor Stent affirmed that Walden had all the right credentials to take on the project and a deal was struck. According to Stent, Walden is presently building up tracks at his home studio in Mt Eden, with Black's vocals to be recorded later on a laptop at her home marae in Whakatane.

As executive producer, Stent sees his role as a facilitator in bringing diverse talents together to create music that is "greater than the sum of its parts". He says that many artists tend to resist the idea of collaboration on the grounds that they may have to compromise their craft. With Whirimako Black there has never been (nor will be) any attempt to tone down the te reo aspect of her music. She possesses a remarkable voice in anyone's language, and frankly the more people that get to hear it in whatever context it's presented, the better.

While she won't admit to being a prolific songwriter unless it's "absolutely required", Whirimako Black has nevertheless been setting a fairly cracking pace since 2001's 'Shrouded in the Mist', now approaching gold status. There was 2003's self-released 'Hohou Te Rongo: Cultivate Peace' which has remarkably clocked up over 5000 sales, and the new album is to be released within eight months of 'Tangihaku'. She's also been asked to do a Simon 'Spice Girls' Fuller-bankrolled world tour with 1 Giant Leap in 2007 (these guys plan ahead!), but has managed to remain non-committal on that one.

Now, as I'm standing on the doorstep post interview, I'm hearing there's a jazz album in the pipeline. More inspired cultural intervention from Mr. Stent evidently, who plans to team Whirimako with Joel Haines and his big brother, jazz star Nathan, plus members of his rather hot band. While admitting she'll have to buckle down and do some swat for that, she seems totally unfazed by the prospect. Likewise when the 1 Giant Leap call came through.

"When I said 'yes', you would think I was just going over the hills. 'Yeah, no worries, I'll go over'. 'Do you want anyone else to go with you?' 'No I'll be alright, I'll just go by myself...' After the phone call I realised 'Good gracious, what have I done? What have I said yes to?' But that's how I've got where I've got, through taking chances and risks."