MArlon Williams remembers a questionnaire where people once read how often they were thinking about death: average once a week. He laughs incredibly. “Do you know the statistic that thinks gender every seven seconds about men? I think about death.”
In an interview that introduces the fourth solo studio album Te While Tīwekaweka, this existential speech is unexpected. But increasingly, Aotearoa/New Zealand artist realizes that his career has taken him further from his roots and prosperity.
Most of the time, his thoughts deal with the manager – with the concern of death cleaning and not being regular. But a life that does not fully lives has Niggle – something that he puts in the tour lifestyle.
“There is a feeling of discontinuity. You make a lot of noise in many places, but you’re not boring through a hole, or he says.
Williams spoke with Guardian Australia for the last time, in 2022, my son was released: Māori instrumentation and tındıdatma techniques and the distribution of Te Reo (Māori Language) album. Now he went deeper and created an album in his ancestors. Te Were Tīwekaweka echoed with a longing for a connection before the opportunity is lost – something he feels in his life and in his relationship with Te reo. A māori says: forgetting the language is a generation and three to get back.
Williams are of Ngāi Tahu and Ngāi Tai origin, his mother’s tribe is the southern island and his father from the North Island. The total immersion preschool, which children spoke only to Reo, was preschool, but when he entered primary school, the language disappeared.
“Not knowing the language is embarrassing and there is pain in my own family not to know, or he says. For the last few years, he has started to take a strange class, but he also taught himself.
He filled him with “Whakamā (self -doubt) :: im I have been psSISED for a long time, I only find the bile.” The title of the album translations as “Dogınık House – – that grammar and expression may not be perfect.
Te Were Tīwekaweka was released at a turbulent time for the Reo and race relations in Aotearoa. Since the oath, the Rightwing coalition government has taken action to reclaim its use in the departments of Te Reo Māori. In November 2024, he introduced a legislation to reinterpret the Waitangi Treaty, which preserved Māori rights.
“As we know from Australia, there may be a referendum that can lead to quite terrible things from Australia, Williams says.
I meet Williams in Melbourne, where he lived after a long commitment day. 10:00 He recovered on the Pho bowl, usually admits that he usually rises at 15 o’clock as a night owl. Taking your brain into the gear, especially in Aotearoa/New Zealand politics, the subject of language – especially in Aotearoa/New Zealand policy.
“I thought of entering at all, because it is very politically installed,” he says, the album is a coincidence that the timing of the album is a coincidence.
Williams seems to have been caught between a rock and a difficult place. As a poster child who is unaware of the Reo, he predicts his identity information secondly, and he is also a public appetite for an album in a language. When he tells people about the album, he notices the tone shift depending on who he is talking to. Sometimes he apologizes – “but all in Māori”.
This anger is striking considering the amount of praise and applause he has enjoyed in his career so far. Numerous APRA and AOTEAROA music awards and previous albums reached number 1 in Aotearoa/New Zealand and the top 10 in Australia. In May, he will play the Sydney Opera House as a part of Vivid Live, and then he will watch shows in New York, Los Angeles and London before returning to Australia for Melbourne’s rising festival. A documentary covering the construction of his latest album, Marlon Williams: Ngā ao e rua – Two WorldsIt opens in New Zealand in May before hitting Australian cinemas.
In recent years, Williams is trying to build a more balanced life, but it is still an ongoing work. Step First: Moving home. In 2013, Melbourne had been displaced for a more immersive musical life, living in Yarra Hotel in Abbotsford for a while, while he and his friends still formed the group Yarra Benders who still tour and record.
During his pandemi, he returned to Lyttelton, a small harbor town on the southern island of Aotearoa/New Zealand to repeat his roots. “Striking.
After the bulletin promotion
He is hanging out with Kommi, a non -solo artist, who taught in Māori and local studies and changes Williams’s “Güvercin Māori” lyrics. Williams saw Kommi presented on Māori Music TV. When they started to meet each other at the parties, they shot.
Among the other collaborations of the album duet with lordeOn the track Kāhore O manu E. singer was doing his own te -reo.
“His pronunciation is very good, Willi says Williams. “A person with so many sound -oriented can hear a vowel voice that cannot be perceived for most people.”
Another piece, Korero Māori, contains a heka choir (which will be included in larger live shows) and takes a woman’s perspective.
Williams translates as’ talk māori ‘, but it also means’ simple’, so ‘like’ don’t be ridiculous’. ‘I have seen a map of the world, I’m trying to use big words on me. I saw a map of the world and I see you here. You left Māori and returned a māori. ”
Again there: the theme of being far away for too long. It can also be seen in the video AUA ATU RāWilliams lies on the couch of a Māori therapist. Wearing a suit and a tie – the same outfit wears a figure in the album cover art. An old drawing of his mother depicts a tired, tired, tall man towards a house during the night.
“I knew this boot as a child, but I would forget, or he says. “I saw it again a few years ago. I said to the mother, ‘Oh, it’s mine.’
And now Williams should pull his famous outfit once again and leave for the US tour at the beginning. Returning home in the community will be overshadowed for fear of kidnapping the “things you need to experience”.
Most young musicians expect to reveling at this moment. Orum I know, ”he says. “As if I have an opposite middle age crisis.”
