MNZ Interview: Ladi6

Ladi6 is a celebrated Aotearoa artist whose music moves effortlessly between soul, hip hop and electronic textures, grounded by a deeply human lyrical voice. Muzic.NZ’s Juliet recently caught up with the incredible Ladi6 (Karoline Fuarosa Park-Tamati) part way through a summer tour ahead of her return to Ngāmotu for a show at Butlers Reef this weekend.

January isn’t even over and already the year feels busy. For Ladi6 that sense of momentum has carried straight through from a New Year’s Eve celebration that began not as a grand plan, but almost by accident.

“It was such a fluke of an awesome event,” she laughs. After nearly two decades of spending New Year’s Eve playing shows, she and a girlfriend found themselves at home with family and friends, wanting something different. Dancing was still the goal but there was nowhere to go. So they decided to make the ultimate house party.

“I just put it out on social media and said, ‘If I put on a New Year’s show, who will come and play with me?’ Everyone who responded became the lineup.” What emerged was a house-party-meets-show energy that struck a chord: intimate, local, welcoming and exactly what people were craving.

“There’s something about that opposite-of-festival vibe,” she says. “A place where you can drink, chat, dance, dip in and out. You don’t have to camp; you don’t have to perform being a festival-goer. You can just be there.”

That spirit has flowed straight into her summer tour – a balance of larger festival stages and regional shows, including a long-awaited return to Ngāmotu. It’s been a few years since she last played the city, a fact that surprised even her.

“It’s definitely pre-Covid,” she says. “When you add Covid into the timeline, everything feels warped. But it’s been way too long.”

The New Plymouth show at Butlers Reef will also feature Hedlok (Che Fu & King Kapisi) as support – a pairing she’s genuinely excited about. “They’re one of my absolute favourites,” she says. “We’d played a private show together once and I just thought, if I ever get the chance to do a proper night with them, I want to.”

The tour follows the release of her 2025 album Le Vā – a record shaped by grief, change, and the liminal space between who we are and who we’re becoming. When asked how that theme translates live, she pauses.

“I actually don’t think the live space needs that much explanation,” she says. “There’s already such an intimate exchange happening – between the audience, me, and the band. If I feel it, I trust that people feel it too.”

She admits the greater challenge was finishing the album itself. “I don’t think I could have completed it until I’d reached the other side,” she says. “I had to be able to listen from start to finish and feel that sense of relief, that I’d found meaning in what I went through.”

That arc, from pain to perspective, has become a defining feature of the record, and one that audiences are responding to deeply.

What’s surprised her most, though, is how affirming the live shows have been in a music industry that feels increasingly fragmented. “Every time I release music, the landscape has changed again,” she says. “You’re told to be on TikTok, to do this, to do that and I always have this moment of panic, like, ‘Do I even understand this anymore?’”

But the shows have reminded her of something simpler. “Music is music. Being in a room together, experiencing joy collectively, that hasn’t changed.”

There’s a renewed confidence there now, a sense of perspective. “I’ve spent so long looking inward,” she reflects. “I forgot to look up and see what I’ve actually built over the years. The shows have validated that for me.”

When she arrives in Taranaki, she promises one thing above all else: joy.

“There’s just so much love in the room,” she says. “It’s going to be a dance-floor night.”

Catch Ladi6 live at Butlers Reef, Ōakura, this Saturday, joined by Hedlok 

Wear comfortable shoes. 

Tickets to Ladi6 Summer Tour