MNZ Interview: Troy Kingi

There are a mix of ‘legends’ and newer voices on this record that Troy managed to wrangle by “simply DM-ing everyone. And they all pretty much said ‘yes’.” That included Manu from Mokomokai, who contributes the intense rhymes to Hori on a Hoiho – a sharp meditation on Māori identity and dislocation, told from scatterings of historical perspectives. “That is all them,” Troy stresses, making it clear that he didn’t want to over-direct the writing. But what emerged still surprised him: instead of following a fixed album concept, the song turned toward “1800’s wartime… colonial war and pā war, I felt like I was right in the trenches when I heard it.” He describes the title image as something almost mythic rather than literal: “I just picture a man, almost on top of a mountain, overlooking war going on down in the trenches.” The title is intriguing, too – a metaphor that’s multilayered. He praises the group’s gift for invention: “Manu creates new proverbs, new whakatauaki and people go with that.”

Troy talks about MĀ, who appears on Afters, with obvious admiration, calling her “an enigma”. (After all, she did just snap up an AMA for her album Blame It On The Weather.) “Her voice is very unique. I love her style, her fashion sense. She’s just super cool.” He recalls that the sound of the track was sparked by a 1990’s record he was listening to on the way to the studio, and that the final arrangement came from a very simple source: “All I had was a bongo,” which was then manipulated into the track’s shuffling pulse. For him, it’s one of the album’s highlights: “…probably one of my favourite tracks actually… just energy, really cool energy.”

I scroll down the set list and stop at Yammie Blue (featuring Diggy Dupé). Isn’t that a poetic take on a dangerous relationship? Well, it is – sort of. But Troy insists Diggy’s lyrics are much more literal than that. “It’s read as a female,” he says, “but he’s talking about a bike… A Yamaha Motorcycle ‘Yammie Blue’, it’s a colour.” Even the chorus plays with that double meaning: “When we sing it… so it does sound like a risky relationship, but it’s actually extra literal.” The track’s sensual, slippery feel comes from Diggy turn a motorbike into something emotionally loaded without ever fully leaving the machine behind. So, now you know.

Someone you might not know about is Tāmaki Makaurau/Pacific rapper Brandn Shiraz, who features on No Heaven on Earth. Brandn really locked into the broader spiritual concept Troy initially had for the album. “I wanted the record to reflect your beliefs, God with us… energy, universe… whatever it is.” Brandn’s song tapped directly into that idea by thinking about death and “the next chapter after death and meeting people that have gone before you.”

Troy remembers Isn’t How I Remember (featuring SWIDT) as one of the fastest songs on the album to come together. “They walked into the studio, listened, shaped a few ideas, and by the end the day, we had that full song.” Even the late tempo lift near the end came together almost as an afterthought in the final half hour. He reckons the speed of the process matters here, because it helps explain the song’s immediacy – it sounds like a room full of instinctive decisions captured before anyone could overthink them.

My favourite song on the album is Cold War. It has some classic Tom Scott lyrics: “Shots fired, cold blood, no remorse, cannot keep doing this anymore”. Troy says Scott was the one artist he especially “needed and wanted.” “He’s been at the pinnacle of Aotearoa rap for the last decade”. But the track took a winding route: the original idea did not quite land, and then a bassline Marika Hodgson was playing for something else suddenly became the song. “As soon as he heard that bassline, the raps came,” Troy says of Tom, adding that “in like 10 minutes, he just had the words.” That was the first verse. Then there was a hiatus of about 3 months. “Tom didn’t feel he could finish the 2nd verse ‘cause he wasn’t in the same place mentally”. And so, he recommended Adam Tukiri instead. “When he came in, I realised we’ve actually worked together before 6-7 years ago.” So, it was some kind of continuity and familiarity. Troy was careful about that handover – “I wouldn’t want to just marry anyone onto a Tom Scott song” – but says Adam, “absolutely killed it.” The final product, then, becomes a document of transition as much as tension: one artist setting the mood, another completing the emotional arc.

Troy says MELODOWNZ, who appears on C the Sun, was the first collaborator he invited into the studio because he wanted to begin with someone he already knew well: “I just wanted to work with someone that I was comfortable with.” They’d already made several songs together in the past, which gave the session a relaxed foundation. MELODOWNZ later re-recorded his verse because he had been sick on the day and was unhappy with how low and rough his voice sounded. But Troy liked the original and had encouraged him to “lean into” that darker tone. Ultimately respected his feelings, though: “We’ve got to make sure you’re happy with it.” That detail says a lot about the album’s collaborative ethos – polish mattered, but so did the artist’s own sense of truth.

Another track we discuss is Much Too Late, which Troy says also plays with misdirection: “It sounds like it’s actually talking about a lady… [but it’s] actually talking about creativity.” He wrote it with Charlie BeReal while in the desert recording Leatherman & the Mojave Green, after inviting him over for dinner and then finding a creative connection in the studio. Troy loves the roughness of Charlie’s first vocal take, saying the sampled verse sounds “very crusty” but that he likes that because “it’s not too clean.”

There’s a couple of other awesome tracks that we miss out in this conversation (Sudden Dip with Lucky Lance and River Don’t Change the Flow feat. JessB and Rubi Du) but I do have to ask about the ‘hidden’ tracks. Troy notes that about 60% of his albums have these and “it’s kind of expected now – ha ha”. Money, featuring Tipene, and Damned, with “Legend” Mareko, Rizván and Tyna, are part of what Troy calls the record’s “secret architecture” rather than throwaway extras. He says one grew out of an earlier Tom Scott session idea, while the other almost took a different form entirely, but both still feel strong enough to stand on their own.

He also reveals one of the album’s small tricks here: he left guest names off the streaming credits so listeners would have to “listen for the voices” rather than jump straight to their favourite artist. That also let him “sneak my own rap under the radar.”

So, we’re at number 9 of 10, with one to go. Night Lords could be read as a one-off genre exercise, one more box to tick. But I doubt that. This is, by all accounts, a carefully assembled world of voices, instincts and sly misdirection – and one that should hit even harder on stage. That’s what will make the upcoming show at Meow Nui such a drawcard: a Pōneke premiere of the live set, packed with featured voices from across the album, and a landmark event for this year’s Lōemis midwinter festival, which runs across Te Whanganui-a-Tara from 9 to 21 June. As Troy says – grab yer ticket, quick. Disappointment is the darkest FOMO.

Troy Kingi Presents Night Lords, Meow Nui, Thursday 18 June, 2026.
Go to www.loemis.nz for more information