MNZ Interview: CoffeeBar Kid Cuts S02 / E03 – Mā

Te Whanganui-a-Tara neo-soul / jazz / hip-hop polymath MĀ (Maarire Brunning-Kouka) has announced herself as a major talent in Aotearoa talent, kicking off with her self-produced debut Breakfast With Hades (2021) on Mara TK’s Meeting House Records. This week she takes to the big stage at Wellington’s iconic street festival CubaDupa to perform songs from her upcoming sophomore effort Blame It On The Weather.

Already out is her ‘opulent’ second single from the record Decay, a collaboration with Oglala Lakota artist Mato Wayuhi (currently only up on Bandcamp) and she’s just confirmed a five-date tour in April with her band The Fly Hunnies collective plus some ‘secret’ special guests.

Stylistically, MĀ, combines soul, hip-hop and Te Reo Māori lyrics and has been described as “casual in the extreme, downtempo and welcoming”. Debut album Breakfast with Hades with its architecture of trip hop grooves and a mix of live playing, loops, synthetic brass and harps, even a thumb piano, hit the mark with critics. And while the music has good vibes the lyrics on these tracks have some serious messaging under the currents.

You’ve played in heaps of local acts around Te Whanganui a Tara, including Louisa Williamson’s jazz band. Musicians like Hikurangi Schaverien-Kaa, Leo Coghini, Jason Rapana, Ensei August, Maioha Hotere, Hayden Nicale, etc. I’ve seen you on stage helping everybody else out. So, this will be your show this time.

Yeah. I guess I’m really lucky to be part of a community of artists who are really open to collaborating and putting things together. We’ve worked together, ‘properly’, for about three years. I’m still pretty fresh compared to the others. I came to this group through Mara TK. He was a mentor of mine for my first album. Then he just started inviting me over to rehearsals, his shows, and that. I guess to just show me the world.

I met Lousia (Williamson) through a wānanga that Mara TK and Asia were running and we’ve worked together, pretty closely. It was a nice way to meet someone and do music.

Louisa is from the Jazz School environment. Was that your background, too?

Not at all. I’m a musician by ear, really. Ha ha.

That must be a challenge working with someone who’s trained in the theory of music and from the academic world.

It’s definitely new. Moments of challenges. But most of all I just ‘geek’ over them, and they ‘geek’ over that style of music. So, where in the same camp. But it’s a whole different world. But yeah, it’s cool.

Can we paint a bit of a picture of who you are and where you’ve come from for a minute. You whakapapa to Ngāti Raukawa, as well as Ngāti Porou, Ngāti Kahungunu and Tūhoe.

And growing up, you’ve described yourself as a “theatre kid” due to your parents’ work. Your mother was the late great actress, director and playwright, Nancy Brunning (1971–2019), known to many as Jaki Manu on Shortland Street and from the movies ‘What Became Of The Broken Hearted’, ‘Mahana’ and ‘Crooked Earth’, amongst many other projects. And your father was award winning playwright. That’s ‘theatre royalty’!

Ha ha. Yeah. I know.

Did you know that you were destined for the arts world?

To be honest – no. I always saw myself as the tradie. I enjoy working outside. My grandfathers were builders. I looked up to that type of mahi. And I work as a ranger and in conservation now. But in after school care I was always around theatre spaces at Taki Rua or at Board Meetings, writer’s blocks, with my parents. So, always around that but I never thought that I should actively pursue an arts career until mum had passed away. It was mum who said: ‘don’t be an artist’. She was very firm – security of income was a ‘thing’.

I guess being an actor through the 70’s 80’s 90’s and early 2000’s was something of a struggle and she knew about the real world challenges making a living.

Yeah. She really did.

Some of her, work, I’m thinking of her role in the film version of ‘What Becomes Of The Broken Hearted’, must have been really challenging. And seeing her on the screen in those roles.

She was able to separate herself from the role or the character she was playing, to be able to come home to me. I’m an only child. When she did finish her mahi she was very present with me. Same for Pops, too.

I read that you’d struggled with mental health issues, some of which were a result of your mother’s premature death of her mother.

Yeah. I was working on a number of projects to settle myself. That includes (the song) Skin to Callus (from Breakfast with Hades), I was around Nelson at the time. That’s where I first worked as a kaitiaki (Ngāti Toarangatira).

Your album, Breakfast with Hades (August, 2021), thematically discusses the different moods your life since the passing of your mother. It looks at Māori literature and culture. As you whakapapa to so many iwi, where do you place yourself?

To be honest both Mum and Dad were products of urbanisation. My whanau, on my dad’s side, moved from their Tūrangawaewae on the East Coast to Christchurch during the Milling Boom. My Mum’s parent moved from Otaki and from Tuhoe whenua to be builders and cleaners. And then my parents moved from their home they grew up in to Wellington. So, I’ve always been taken care of, I guess, by Ngāti Toa, Te Atiawa, Ngāti Raukawa. Occasionally, we go back. That’s only just starting. Reconnecting back to our whenua.

And how’s that going?

It’s scary but good. I’d met some of the people before my Mum passed away. So, somewhere to start off the mahi she’s already done (reconnecting back to her iwi). Quite a blessing.

And has that inspired you, as an artist?

Definitely. That feeling of trying something, something you should be a part of. You are not really sure until you go there. That feeling is not prominent until you go back home. I only recently took my Mum’s photo back to Tuhoe (to place in at the Marae, as tupuna). It was a big a deal. She’s always wanted to live on Tuhoe whenua. I couldn’t have done it without everything she’s taught me. It was a really special moment. Even though I tried to stall ‘chill’ about it.

You’ve lived in a number of places: Gisborne, Nelson, Wellington.

I lived overseas for a bit – Córdoba (a large city in Argentina and the capital of Córdoba province). Córdoba is the second biggest city. I wanted to see the world as soon as I finished High School. I wasn’t ready to choose a career, go to University yet. I volunteered as a carer for physically disabled people. I boarded there. They fed me. I worked with the families. I was there for about a year. It was a beautiful experience.

Let’s talk about your last album, 2021’s Breakfast with Hades. Where did the album title come from?

‘Hades’ – that’s the name of my cat. ‘Breakfast’ is short for the group of friends I have. We call ourselves the ‘Breakfast Club’. We all met at Uni. We all felt we were the ‘weird ones’. We’ve gone through a lot of ‘life’ stuff together – happy, sad, all of it. Hades was in our flat. He’d always been a bit of anchor for us. So, it was a bit of an ode and a shout out to the ‘boy’. And to my friend group, how we’ve stuck together.

It opens with Dreamswimmer, named Witi Ihimaera’s book and has a link with the insomnia you felt after your mother’s passing. Ihimaera’s ‘The Dream Swimmer’ (1997) continues on from ‘Matriarch’ (1986) investigating the ramifications of European colonisation of Aotearoa over several generations of a Māori whanau.

Dreamswimmer – yeah. This was me dealing with the loss, of my physical connection with my Mum as she passed away. With her cancer, there was a lot of moments when she was sleeping that she looked like she was swimming, whilst she was in bed. That’s a memory I’ll never forget.

Then, at the same time, she was directing. She wrote a theatre show called ‘Whiti’s Wāhine’ (2 May – 20 May 2023. ASB Waterfront Theatre.), reflecting on stories he’s written. About the women in his life. That was the last show that she got to direct. And she did that through pretty rough times. She shouldn’t have been directing, while she was sick at that time. The song is a little bit of a time stamp for me, seeing my Mum work while she was sick, but also seeing how those stories connected and related to her. ‘Dreamswimmer’ was also one of the scenes in the play.

The rest of Breakfast With Hades feels like you are discovering yourself and your own creativity.

Yeah. I had no intentions of trying to crack it as a musician at the time. It was just away for me to express my grief. Each song was a mood as I was grieving. You know, lack of sleep, which leads to, I guess mania. And then there’s kind of ‘trappy’ song. A bit of anger in there. Love in there. I was trying to record my emotions at the time. Especially, ‘post Mum’ passing.

Ideally didn’t want to go ‘off the rails’. So, this was a good way to focus my emotions – so, I could survive, I guess.

Thank you for being so honest on this.

I’m really big on themes. My new album, I guess, relates to the work I do in the daytime, as a ranger, with Ngati Toa, out in Porirua. This next album is all about the taihoa and the environment, what’s happening with climate change. What it looks like, me being a ‘tradie’. How it looks being on the ground, working in the rain, the sun. I’m really excited to move away from grief and into, I guess, ecosystems.

The songs are related to the every day mahi I do. There’s a song about traps. One about pest weeds. Another about water quality and flooding. Another about being colonized, about being a city-slicker but wanting to move to the bush.

I’m really looking forward to performing that music at CubaDupa and our upcoming tour in April.

And you will tour with The Fly Hunies.

My beautiful band – Of course, Louisa Williamson (Sax); Hikurangi Schaverien-Kaa (drums); Leo Coghini (keys); Jason Rapana (Bass); Ensei August (percussion); Maioha Hotere (guitar); and Hayden Nicale (violin) and Wynona on the ‘ones & twos’ (DJ/turntables).

I wish you all the best for your upcoming tour. Are you excited?

I’ve got all feelings, Tim. Looking forward to it and performing my new songs at CubaDupa. Thank you so much. Ka kete ano, aroha mai.

MĀ’s new album Blame It On The Weather will drop on 28 March 2025

MĀ and The Fly Hunnies will be on the Wellington Airport Ngāti Taniwha stage at CubaDupa, 29 March.

In April MĀ and The Fly Hunnies will be on tour:

3 April: Auckland – Big Fan

4 April: Raglan – The Yard

11 April: Lyttleton – Lyttleton Coffee Co.

12 April: Dunedin – Pearl Diver

26 April: Wellington – Meow