KOMMI

KOMMI is a non-binary music artist, recording and performance collaborator, award-winning songwriter, poet, art collaborator, swampwitch, and lecturer in Māori and Indigenous Studies and te reo Māori, based in Ōhinehou/Lyttelton. Their Witch-Hop/SwampWitch music is delivered in the dialect of their iwi, Kāi Tahu. They also have strong whakapapa to Te Āti Awa, Ngāti Mutunga, and Ngāti Tama.

KOMMI is known for their discombobulating live performances with a full witch-hop band, sometimes including onstage spooks and supernatural beings. Largely ao wairua (metaphysical/spiritual), part mauri tau (serene), part mauri hihiko (hyped up), and somewhat macabre in places, KOMMI’s music tends to slither up and creep beneath the skin, pulsing through the listener in a philosophical reckoning with one’s own taipō (unwanted supernatural entities that haunt the living) and the self.

KOMMI’s music retains a unique Indigenous Māori worldview. Their songs tell stories about whakahaehae (hauntings), whaiwhaiā (witchcraft), tāiro (counteracting a harmful spell), ātahu (love spells), and contemporary tales about tūrehu (faerie-like people), alongside visions of death and escapism, and cautionary tales relating to burdensome people in vexing situations. They also perform songs about being hōhā (bored, weary, irked) with many things, including a “three-headed kiore government”, and songs concerning the law enforcement system in Aotearoa me Te Waipounamu.

KOMMI is set to release a full-length album of swampwitch reo Kāi Tahu music. They also have an EP, Tauwhenua, with producer Infectiouss, consisting of exquisitely spooky and spellbinding te reo Māori rap songs. KOMMI also features on the single Take It Back by emo trap/dark pop alt-rap artist Ferby and gothic alt-country/folk-noir singer-songwriter Delaney Davidson’s single Tumbleweed.

KOMMI also features on Huri Te Whenua by Marlon Williams from the album Te Whare Tīwekaweka, which made history as the first full te reo Māori album to reach number one on both the New Zealand Albums Chart and the NZ Reo Māori Albums Chart.

KOMMI was also a co-writer and key creative collaborator on Te Whare Tīwekaweka, which won the 2026 Taite Music Prize for Marlon Williams. KOMMI and Williams also won the 2025 APRA Silver Scroll Awards for the single Aua Atu Rā. In 2025, KOMMI and Infectiouss won the Aotearoa Alternative Music Awards for Tāiro featuring Marlon Williams.

 

Photo Credit: Chris Zwaagdyk / Zed Pics for Muzic.NZ