Ōtautahi O.G. Ladi6 tells Cityscape about the importance of a good team, especially her ‘fairy godmother’ stylists, and following in her family’s footsteps in a counselling career.
We love the look in your new promo shot – deets please?
OK, hair and makeup is my incredible makeup artist and hair stylist Darren Meredith. We actually found out recently we are cousins – we've been working together for about 15 years. And then the styling – that beautiful pink shirt that I’ve got on and the glasses, that’s Sammy Salsa, another Island boy. I wouldn’t have any style or any kind of flavour without them. Because aesthetically I’m just really regular, super-normal, boring. You wouldn’t even recognise me at the supermarket because I just look like any other person They always know what’s best for me and I’m just so lucky to be able to call them my mates and give them a call and be like ‘I’m stuck, I need to go to this thing’ and they’re like ‘Hold on’ – they’re like my fairy godmothers.
OK, I’ll still ask my next question – any style tips?
Get a good stylist! They taught me that style is really like play. I have had so much fucking fun playing and I’m so lucky to have had the opportunity to have somebody tell me to play. I would never have done it on my own. As a child I remember going through my mum’s jewellery box trying on all the costume jewellery. I gave that up somewhere along the way, about 12 or 13, whenever the hormones kick in and you start to get self-conscious. So I was lucky enough to meet those guys when I was in my early 20s and they were really all about play – play with fashion, try this on, this will look amazing. And who gives a shit – put a necklace on your head! And through that perspective I really realised that fashion is play, and if it’s not play then you're taking it way too seriously.
What’s the favourite item in your wardrobe?
Ooh, I have this little feather vest and I wear it back to front so it looks like a feather top. The feathers are so soft and they just float and the way that they move – it’s my favourite thing. I accidentally stole it from a shoot that I did with Sammy Salsa and I just haven’t had the opportunity to give it back.
Are you still loving what you do?
I guess when you have been doing it as long as I have it becomes second nature. I still get nervous before every show. It’s a funny thing, it definitely has changed. Now I get excited literally the day before a gig and then that high that you chase when you perform live, I have it for less time now after the show. It will last for like an hour after the show and then it is completely gone, but I used to be high off that energy for a week.
Is this what you dreamed of back in the Sheelahroc days?
I dreamed in Sheelahroc that someone would know my name in Auckland. You know what I mean? The dreams were very small.
Now they know your name in Berlin!
Yeah. When I got back from Berlin for the second time I had an inkling that I was going to do this for as long as I could, for as long as my commitment and diligence to the cause would get me. And then as life-things start happening you think, oh can I really be bothered with this shit? It’s a lot, just in terms of self-managing. It’s just like running any small business I think, it’s a 24/7 gig. But as I’ve recruited my friends in the team it’s become fun again. So when I got the Sixes on board, they’re my dancers, it gave me new life again because they were all in their 20s and they all were loving these gigs that I had done for years and years and years so then they gave me energy. And then I got my best friend on to co-manage the band and all of a sudden our meetings and so on are fun again. So the change has been me realising that I need the right people around me and then that gives me new energy all over again.
And also I started studying when Covid happened and I realise that what gives me energy for the music is to do something else with my time that I am equally passionate about which then serves as this awesome break and I feel really grateful about being able to go on tour and do music because I realise that 9 to 5 is cool but it’s not as cool as going on tour. And I started to really realise what I have here. These are the kinds of things that have fuelled my passion for continuing on with the music.
And also Parks, he’s a genius, he’s a real true-blue musician. He’s in the studio 24/7 and I probably wouldn’t be where I am if it wasn’t for him, having that trust in him that he is always going to set the tone right. I have 100 percent trust that he knows what is the next-best step musically for Ladi6. If I also had to make that decision I would have been out of the game a long time ago, that’s just one too many decisions to have to make.
What are you studying?
I’m studying counselling. My whole entire family was very well known back in the day in Christchurch in the helping community. Both my parents for their whole lives worked in Christchurch as community helpers of some description. And then apart from one sister and me who are in the creative industries, all the rest of my siblings are in the helping industries. So I was always probably supposed to go this way and I’ve finally got there because Covid allowed me this opportunity because I didn’t have shit to do so I thought oh well, I’ll start studying. So I did part-time just to see – because I’d never done uni, I’d done music since high school just all the way. And I loved it! And now I’ve been in placement at the Auckland Women’s Centre up here in Grey Lynn and it’s just such a privilege to sit with people through their tough times and just be a part of the process of figuring out how to get through them. It’s such an honour. So I feel really, really lucky to have stumbled on it. Like I say, my family has always been into it so I probably should have gone this way in the first place. Probably the stumble was the music!
So will your future be a mix of Ladi6 and Dr Ladi6?
Yeah, I do think that. And I actually want to try at some stage to merge the two in some way. Not counsel my fans, because that’s weird, but I mean open up my platforms that I have been able to create through Ladi6 and just talk a little more openly about mental health and maybe even connect music because there is so much about the healing power in music, as we all know intrinsically. Maybe there is something there where I can connect the two to just serve people more. As I get older, I feel more of an inclination to give back rather than take.