Photo: Still from BALDH3AD! video, Frances Carter.

Kei ngooku manu aute puta noa i te motu, Pai Maarire! 
He mokopuna teenei noo te riu o Waikato Taniwha Rau e karanga atu nei ki a koutou. Ko Ngaati Tiipaa, ko Ngaati Aamaru, ko Te Ahiwaru ngooku hapuu. Ko Tauranganui, ko Te Kotahitanga, ko Ooraeroa ngooku marae. Ko Kukutai, ko Karaka ngooku whaanau. Ko Theia ahau. He manutiioriori, he kaitito waiata anoo hoki. E toro atu ana ngooku ringa ki ngooku kaupapa puoro e rua, araa ko THEIA, ko TE KAAHU hoki.

My 10-track album Girl, In A Savage World goes against everything music execs advise. There are no big radio hits or songs that will likely stream in the hundreds and thousands. It doesn’t adhere to one genre or sound, rather it blends Maaori instrumentation, like puutaratara and puurerehua, and traditional composition, such as haka and mooteatea, with contemporary soundscapes and modern songwriting practices.

It does not pander to algorithms, nor to corporations hellbent on stripping music of artistic integrity and value. It is political. It is unapologetic. It is feminist. It is an act of decolonization. And it is not what I originally thought my album would be.

I started releasing singles from what I thought would be the album in January 2023. I’d taken a few years off releasing music as Theia because I’d been so focused on my reo rangatira project, TE KAAHU. Theia was a stage name I’d carried with me since releasing my first single back in 2016, while the waiata of TE KAAHU occupy their own space on streaming platforms. Both are very much me!

I first started writing, recording, and releasing the waiata for TE KAAHU during lockdown. The creative process was so refreshing. There were no expectations, no deadlines, no record execs telling me how the songs should sound – just myself, my tiny all-female team and no putea!

I stopped beating myself up for not meeting the impossible standards I believed I needed to meet to be successful – a hangover from being signed by a major record label for my first two Theia EPs. For the first time in my music career, I had the freedom to craft a body of work in an organic and holistic way with no thought for streams, charts, or radio play. I just wanted to make an album for my tuupuna documenting whakapapa, maatauranga and koorero tuku iho.

I was thrilled to discover, that despite having had it drummed into me that my BA Degree double majoring in Te Reo Rangatira and Māori & Indigenous Studies would amount to nothing, these songs written and sung entirely in te reo Maaori were resonating with audiences far beyond my hapuu and even Aotearoa. TE KAAHU was suddenly on the same North American festival line-ups as names like Emmylou Harris, Jeff Tweedy, Tanya Tucker, James Blake, Skrillex and M.I.A.

To perform these waiata in foreign lands and to receive such an overwhelmingly positive response was mind-blowing. What comforted my heart was that so many people wanted to know more about my people! They devoured koorero I offered about my songs, including my great grandmother Nanny Mite’s famed waiata Kiwi Weka and were full of questions about our language and culture. They weren’t interested in Lord of the Rings, hobbits, and the NZ sheep population – they were inquisitive and craving knowledge about Te Ao Maaori!

Once the dust settled, I set about writing songs for my debut Theia album, endeavoring to follow a similar creative process to that of the TE KAAHU record. No more disjointed and sporadic studio sessions, with a producer sitting at a computer creating beats – both of us under pressure to churn out a finished banger in a matter of hours.

Instead, I allowed myself time to explore lyrical themes and sonics and began delving deeper into subject matter like religious trauma (Crucified By U) and heteronormativity (Girls! and Dollhouse). I loved these songs and thought they would make it on the album. BUT along came the 2023 election, with the bitter fruits being the three-headed coalition government. Fueled by a fury that I’d not felt before, I sat down with my manager, who agreed we needed to cast aside the songs I’d intended for the album and start again. She sent me off, saying “Just go and make the album YOU want to make and don’t be afraid to push the boundaries as far as you possibly can.”

Watching the government recklessly unpick decades of progress in recognising the principles of tino rangatiratanga filled me with vehemence and sparked songs like BALDH3AD!, Hoki Whenua Mai (Return The Land), Patupaiarehe and I Picked A Flower From The Grave.

In writing, recording, and co-producing this album, I wanted to give permanence to maatauranga about the historical impact of colonisation upon Maaori and the subsequent cultural revitalisation through music, language revitalization and storytelling. It recalls ugly truths, such as the Tohunga Suppression Act, the loss of our native tongue through the missionary school system and the Raupatu of the Waikato Wars on my iwi, hapuu and whaanau.

In the same way that TE KAAHU had been warmly received overseas, so too were these new Theia songs. Performing them to audiences in Los Angeles, Calgary, Utah, Montana, and Seattle, I was heartened to find people already knew about, and were saddened by, the political unrest back home in Aotearoa; a country they’d always believed to be a leader in equality. Their response made me more determined to keep pushing the boundaries and now, after two years of crafting a body of work on my terms, the album is out in the world

Despite this heaviness, there’s also hope imbued in this record. Through music, there is hope for the betterment of rangatahi and Maaori throughout Aotearoa, as well as our Indigenous relatives overseas. Te Ao Maaori is something to be celebrated and revered. It must be protected at all costs!

If my album Girl, In A Savage World does cross your path, please lend her your ear. It may be a confrontational listen in places, but I say, sit in the discomfort. My intention is not to cause further division in Aotearoa, it is to bring us closer together. There is such strength in being able to look back on the past to inform our future and healing.

I’ve been asked a few times what I want people to take away from this record. My answer lies in the last few lines from the final waiata on the album, I Picked A Flower From The Grave, written for my staunch Nanny Mite Kukutai – Te Taniwha O Waikato: “Great grandmother hear my cry! Wipe these tears from my eyes. I will sing till my last breath! I will not let them forget. I will not let them forget!”