May 3, 2025 • 13 mins
Karoline Tamati, known to Kiwi music fans as Ladi6, is back with her new single Lightbulb - and she's confirmed there's more to come.
Her upcoming new album Le Va is her first big musical project in seven years.
This album promises to be a deeply personal project, as it was written as a tribute to Tamati's late mother.
"We had a very specific theme for this next record - which was that we wanted it to be more indicative of the live show. In the past, we hadn't had that so much, we'd sort of kept to the mellow end of soul and R&B."
LISTEN ABOVE
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudkin
from News Talks EDB.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
This is brand new music by Lady six released on Thursday.
This song is light Bulb. It's off her upcoming album LeVar,
which is the first album for Caroline Tummarty aka Lady
six and seven years. The album is a deeply personal
one for Caroline, written through hard times as a tribute
to her late mother and Caroline Tummoty or Lady six,
is with me now. Good morning, good morning, How are
(00:37):
you good? Thank you so lovely to have you with us.
This album has been a long time coming, hasn't it?
Is it seven years since we had an EP from him?
Speaker 3 (00:47):
It's seven years and I feel like when nobody cares,
nobody counts the COVID years, So five years can we
be true?
Speaker 2 (00:54):
That is so true? Look, we've had two singles so far.
The full album is less than a month away. How
are you feeling about its release?
Speaker 3 (01:03):
I am breaking out in high so that sees everything. Really,
It's just one of those things where I really feel
like it's been so long I have to get back
on the back in the I don't know, whatever the mode,
I guess, but I'm very excited and as it's coming together,
it sort of starts to reignite the engine, and I'm
(01:27):
starting to get more and more excited as time progresses
towards During the first which is when the album drops.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
This is said to be your most personal project to date.
It's dedicated to your mother, who passed away in twenty twenty.
Tell me a little bit about your mum.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
Oh, mum. She was like a force of nature, the
matriarch of our family. She was a take no crap,
kind of say it like it is kind of woman,
and she ended up sort of influencing me in that way.
(02:03):
I ended up I had those traits also and mylf
and she was a real mentor to me and the
way that she lived her life and the things that
she did with their life. So her passing was huge,
major Carolina.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
I know she passed away during COVID, and I often
think just how incredibly hard it must be in those
times dealing with someone passing away with all those restrictions
and things in place.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
Was that your experience, Oh, absolutely, along with the hundreds
of other Kiwis that lost people during COVID, It was
kind of like a I imagine a nightmare situation you
sort of don't know. She actually passed on the very
first day of Lockdown one, when Lockdown one was called.
So also we didn't know what the protocol was, so
(02:49):
it was kind of this quick quick education on exactly
how this goes and who's supposed to come over and
where's Mum's supposed to go if she's supposed to go anywhere?
Or was we had family racing back to their homes
because we had a lot of family come up. She
was sort of impalliative care for a couple of weeks
(03:11):
before she passed, so we had family from all over
the country care and they all were like quickly escaping
back to their houses as lockdown got called. So it
just felt like an emergency, sort of dire end of
the world situation at the time. Sure it did, and
we didn't you know. Yeah, And so we didn't end
up having her memorial or like a sort of funeral service,
(03:32):
I guess until that following year.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Oh my goodness, Look, I know that you were working,
you were working on this album before your mom passed away.
How differently is the album to the one that you're
working on prior to twenty twenty. Did it change much?
Speaker 3 (03:51):
Yeah, it completely changed actually, but it ended up being
able to sort of influence a more clixic record, and
I think in the end what you ended up getting
is something far more diverse than probably where we were
originally hitting. We had a very a very specific theme
for this next record, which we wanted it to be
(04:13):
sort of more indicative of the live show and the
past we haven't had that so much was sort of
kipped into the mellow end of sort of soul and
R and B, and we wanted it to sort of
show our more dancier live show aspects because we kind
of like would change our entire music and edit them
so that they would be more like engaging live. So
(04:35):
we wanted to just have a record that actually showcased that,
and then we mum passed. The influence of I guess
just emotionally how it was feeling at the time played
a real significant role, and so at the end it
ends up having all these all this diversity of sound
and ecliptically and genre wise, we've been in a whole
bunch of areas. So I ended up using collaborating with
(04:59):
this incredible New Zealand poet Grace. Grace I wash to
Taylor from Auckland here and just to sort of, I think,
make the connecting factors between each song so that the
story itself felt like it was one one story and
not and not just a mess of bits and bobs
(05:21):
from all over the show. So in the end it's
a very like symbiotic sound.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
I think, what was the process of making the album
like for you? Was it emotionally a hard one?
Speaker 3 (05:35):
Was it emotionally a hard one? I think they all are.
I think this one's definitely was. I use records really
as a healing process. The songwriting process is really a
healing process for me, and so being able to kind
of reflect and then use all my reflections as a
source of thematically as a source resource to pull from
(05:57):
when I was writing the songs, and that way it
was hard, but it was also so healing and beneficial.
And I think I'm that long in the tooth now
that I can really see that sort of at the
beginning of the process, I can sort of see like
that it's going to end up that I'm going I
can see a light at the end of the tunnel,
and I'm going to at the end of this process
(06:18):
be very much in the sunlight, and I think by
the time tour comes around in June, it will be
celebratory that time.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
Yeah, what a beautiful way to put it. I can
just feel that celebration coming through. But my goodness, it
has been quite a rough ride for you recently, because
am I right that you had throat sogering about twenty eighteen?
Speaker 3 (06:39):
I did. I had two. I had two throat surgeries
to take away these. I didn't quite have nodules. I
don't know how familiar your listeners are or you are
with like with nodules, but I just had these polyps
and they're from apparently, so my E and T doctor
tells me they're from. When the folds, your vocal folds
are constantly bashing up against one another, it can cause
(07:03):
kind of like an injury of these little things grow,
little bumps growing that block your vocal folds from closing completely,
so you might hear certain voiceover artists or actors or
singers that have a real raspy tone a lot of
ears coming through your vocal folds. And that's essentially what
was happening with me, and it made me lose my
(07:24):
voice very very easily, to the point where I had
to cancel one of my tours because I had no
voice in fact, so I just had to have two
surgeries just to remove these little pullups, and my vocal
folds could close completely. So that was what was going
on then, And it was very scary because if you
can imagine, you rely on your voice so much. Apparently
(07:44):
this type of surgery and this kind of injury also
happens with teachers. I imagine it happens with anyone that's
constantly using their voice. So it was very scary, just
kind of like having this realization, like it's my career over.
Am I not going to be able to do this
thing that I've done for two decades? How awful? But
(08:06):
but we came through and we've got it.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
Back and the voice is sounding amazing.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
And the voice is sounding amazing.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
Hey, I'm also really interested in your other career. You're
in your third year of the counseling degree at aut
What prompted that move.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
Ah, well, I mean it's not far removed from sort
of I guess the work that my family's always done.
My parents are very prolific in the social work, youth work,
community work, world, and I was brought up in that
world in christ Church, and so I've always had a
tendency to want to do this work. But I guess
(08:47):
straight out of high school I got into music off
and off I went. So when COVID happened and Mom passed,
I think this was also the influence of Mum's passing
and my dad's still in the work. He's still he
founded his own NGEO that works with men and violence.
I think I saw the opportunity when all the gigs
(09:09):
sort of dried up. There was this like error, like
maybe a year of nothing musically and creatively happening. I
just kind of thought, you know what, I'm going to try,
and I'll go part time and see if I can
even do this because I haven't been out of high
school for so long that I don't even know if
higher education is something I'm capable of. And then I
just love the work. And so I've been at placement
(09:30):
at Auckland Women Center now for two years and I
finished my degree in December.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
I think it's fantastic and really inspirational for other people.
You know, as you say, you might have been out
of high school for a little period of time, but
there's no reason why you can't go back and study,
and you know, especially when you've got so much to give.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
Absolutely, And also I feel like maybe it's trending with
like millennials, maybe like the older millennials, because I feel
like a lot of my girlfriends are also sort of
changing careers or going back into sort of educating themselves
or upgrading in some way something in their lives. So
(10:10):
maybe it's I'm just I'm just super typical of my
generation right now. But you can and we are. No.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
I think it's really exciting that people aren't afraid to
do that. I think it really is. Tell me, you know,
you mentioned your parents there and the work that they've done,
and I know that they taught you to sing and
dance as part of holiday programs they ran. Can you
see yourself kind of going in a similar direction. Do
you think there would could potentially be a tie in
(10:40):
between your music and your counseling.
Speaker 3 (10:43):
Oh, one hundred percent. It's funny that you mentioned that
because just recently I have started using music in my
counseling sessions, just with some specific clients, and I never
thought I would. I think I thought of myself as
kind of like a Clark Kent Superman. I'll have these
two different personas you know, and I'll put on my
(11:04):
glasses and be counselor in this and then take them
off and put on address and be like Lady six
in this other era. But I do, I do. I'm
starting to realize bringing it into session and bring it
in into practice, that there is this crossover that I
could that I could grow into and figure out a
way in which this is really beneficial. Because music is
so healing. We already know that, just as human beings
(11:29):
and knowing the kinds of soundtracks that really mark these
occasions in our lives, you know, we already feel that
sort of resonance. I think, so in the healing space,
I think it's there's definitely room to do that. And
I'm still I'm still that a tentative, investigative researching part
(11:51):
of the process, I think, but I definitely see I
definitely see a crossover and and I'm excited to continue
exploring that for sure.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
So the album is out on June first. The tour
kicks off mid June. It's a reasonably big tour too.
How excited are you to get in front of a
crowd and play this album live.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
Oh my gosh. Well, we haven't got the music together yet,
we haven't actually started rehearsal, so I'm just really anxious
to kind of map out exactly what will be delivered.
So I'm very excited because they want it to be
so super special, So I'm in that nervous kind of
mode have been like, We've got to get this exactly right.
But the album is really beautiful. Like I can't express
(12:33):
how proud I am of this record more than any
other that I've done, and so I think it's going
to be incredible and I just cannot wait.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
I cannot wait for it either. Thank you so much.
That was Caroline Tarmothy aka Lady six with us there
talking about her new album. It is out on June first.
LeVar is the name of it, and as we mentioned
there the two it's going to kick off in mid
June as well an Attenny one. She is amazing. Lines
are going to want to catch that.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin, listen
live to News Talks at b from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudkin
from News Talks EDB.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
This is brand new music by Lady six released on Thursday.
This song is light Bulb. It's off her upcoming album LeVar,
which is the first album for Caroline Tummarty aka Lady
six and seven years. The album is a deeply personal
one for Caroline, written through hard times as a tribute
to her late mother and Caroline Tummoty or Lady six,
is with me now. Good morning, good morning, How are
(00:37):
you good? Thank you so lovely to have you with us.
This album has been a long time coming, hasn't it?
Is it seven years since we had an EP from him?
Speaker 3 (00:47):
It's seven years and I feel like when nobody cares,
nobody counts the COVID years, So five years can we
be true?
Speaker 2 (00:54):
That is so true? Look, we've had two singles so far.
The full album is less than a month away. How
are you feeling about its release?
Speaker 3 (01:03):
I am breaking out in high so that sees everything. Really,
It's just one of those things where I really feel
like it's been so long I have to get back
on the back in the I don't know, whatever the mode,
I guess, but I'm very excited and as it's coming together,
it sort of starts to reignite the engine, and I'm
(01:27):
starting to get more and more excited as time progresses
towards During the first which is when the album drops.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
This is said to be your most personal project to date.
It's dedicated to your mother, who passed away in twenty twenty.
Tell me a little bit about your mum.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
Oh, mum. She was like a force of nature, the
matriarch of our family. She was a take no crap,
kind of say it like it is kind of woman,
and she ended up sort of influencing me in that way.
(02:03):
I ended up I had those traits also and mylf
and she was a real mentor to me and the
way that she lived her life and the things that
she did with their life. So her passing was huge,
major Carolina.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
I know she passed away during COVID, and I often
think just how incredibly hard it must be in those
times dealing with someone passing away with all those restrictions
and things in place.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
Was that your experience, Oh, absolutely, along with the hundreds
of other Kiwis that lost people during COVID, It was
kind of like a I imagine a nightmare situation you
sort of don't know. She actually passed on the very
first day of Lockdown one, when Lockdown one was called.
So also we didn't know what the protocol was, so
(02:49):
it was kind of this quick quick education on exactly
how this goes and who's supposed to come over and
where's Mum's supposed to go if she's supposed to go anywhere?
Or was we had family racing back to their homes
because we had a lot of family come up. She
was sort of impalliative care for a couple of weeks
(03:11):
before she passed, so we had family from all over
the country care and they all were like quickly escaping
back to their houses as lockdown got called. So it
just felt like an emergency, sort of dire end of
the world situation at the time. Sure it did, and
we didn't you know. Yeah, And so we didn't end
up having her memorial or like a sort of funeral service,
(03:32):
I guess until that following year.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Oh my goodness, Look, I know that you were working,
you were working on this album before your mom passed away.
How differently is the album to the one that you're
working on prior to twenty twenty. Did it change much?
Speaker 3 (03:51):
Yeah, it completely changed actually, but it ended up being
able to sort of influence a more clixic record, and
I think in the end what you ended up getting
is something far more diverse than probably where we were
originally hitting. We had a very a very specific theme
for this next record, which we wanted it to be
(04:13):
sort of more indicative of the live show and the
past we haven't had that so much was sort of
kipped into the mellow end of sort of soul and
R and B, and we wanted it to sort of
show our more dancier live show aspects because we kind
of like would change our entire music and edit them
so that they would be more like engaging live. So
(04:35):
we wanted to just have a record that actually showcased that,
and then we mum passed. The influence of I guess
just emotionally how it was feeling at the time played
a real significant role, and so at the end it
ends up having all these all this diversity of sound
and ecliptically and genre wise, we've been in a whole
bunch of areas. So I ended up using collaborating with
(04:59):
this incredible New Zealand poet Grace. Grace I wash to
Taylor from Auckland here and just to sort of, I think,
make the connecting factors between each song so that the
story itself felt like it was one one story and
not and not just a mess of bits and bobs
(05:21):
from all over the show. So in the end it's
a very like symbiotic sound.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
I think, what was the process of making the album
like for you? Was it emotionally a hard one?
Speaker 3 (05:35):
Was it emotionally a hard one? I think they all are.
I think this one's definitely was. I use records really
as a healing process. The songwriting process is really a
healing process for me, and so being able to kind
of reflect and then use all my reflections as a
source of thematically as a source resource to pull from
(05:57):
when I was writing the songs, and that way it
was hard, but it was also so healing and beneficial.
And I think I'm that long in the tooth now
that I can really see that sort of at the
beginning of the process, I can sort of see like
that it's going to end up that I'm going I
can see a light at the end of the tunnel,
and I'm going to at the end of this process
(06:18):
be very much in the sunlight, and I think by
the time tour comes around in June, it will be
celebratory that time.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
Yeah, what a beautiful way to put it. I can
just feel that celebration coming through. But my goodness, it
has been quite a rough ride for you recently, because
am I right that you had throat sogering about twenty eighteen?
Speaker 3 (06:39):
I did. I had two. I had two throat surgeries
to take away these. I didn't quite have nodules. I
don't know how familiar your listeners are or you are
with like with nodules, but I just had these polyps
and they're from apparently, so my E and T doctor
tells me they're from. When the folds, your vocal folds
are constantly bashing up against one another, it can cause
(07:03):
kind of like an injury of these little things grow,
little bumps growing that block your vocal folds from closing completely,
so you might hear certain voiceover artists or actors or
singers that have a real raspy tone a lot of
ears coming through your vocal folds. And that's essentially what
was happening with me, and it made me lose my
(07:24):
voice very very easily, to the point where I had
to cancel one of my tours because I had no
voice in fact, so I just had to have two
surgeries just to remove these little pullups, and my vocal
folds could close completely. So that was what was going
on then, And it was very scary because if you
can imagine, you rely on your voice so much. Apparently
(07:44):
this type of surgery and this kind of injury also
happens with teachers. I imagine it happens with anyone that's
constantly using their voice. So it was very scary, just
kind of like having this realization, like it's my career over.
Am I not going to be able to do this
thing that I've done for two decades? How awful? But
(08:06):
but we came through and we've got it.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
Back and the voice is sounding amazing.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
And the voice is sounding amazing.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
Hey, I'm also really interested in your other career. You're
in your third year of the counseling degree at aut
What prompted that move.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
Ah, well, I mean it's not far removed from sort
of I guess the work that my family's always done.
My parents are very prolific in the social work, youth work,
community work, world, and I was brought up in that
world in christ Church, and so I've always had a
tendency to want to do this work. But I guess
(08:47):
straight out of high school I got into music off
and off I went. So when COVID happened and Mom passed,
I think this was also the influence of Mum's passing
and my dad's still in the work. He's still he
founded his own NGEO that works with men and violence.
I think I saw the opportunity when all the gigs
(09:09):
sort of dried up. There was this like error, like
maybe a year of nothing musically and creatively happening. I
just kind of thought, you know what, I'm going to try,
and I'll go part time and see if I can
even do this because I haven't been out of high
school for so long that I don't even know if
higher education is something I'm capable of. And then I
just love the work. And so I've been at placement
(09:30):
at Auckland Women Center now for two years and I
finished my degree in December.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
I think it's fantastic and really inspirational for other people.
You know, as you say, you might have been out
of high school for a little period of time, but
there's no reason why you can't go back and study,
and you know, especially when you've got so much to give.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
Absolutely, And also I feel like maybe it's trending with
like millennials, maybe like the older millennials, because I feel
like a lot of my girlfriends are also sort of
changing careers or going back into sort of educating themselves
or upgrading in some way something in their lives. So
(10:10):
maybe it's I'm just I'm just super typical of my
generation right now. But you can and we are. No.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
I think it's really exciting that people aren't afraid to
do that. I think it really is. Tell me, you know,
you mentioned your parents there and the work that they've done,
and I know that they taught you to sing and
dance as part of holiday programs they ran. Can you
see yourself kind of going in a similar direction. Do
you think there would could potentially be a tie in
(10:40):
between your music and your counseling.
Speaker 3 (10:43):
Oh, one hundred percent. It's funny that you mentioned that
because just recently I have started using music in my
counseling sessions, just with some specific clients, and I never
thought I would. I think I thought of myself as
kind of like a Clark Kent Superman. I'll have these
two different personas you know, and I'll put on my
(11:04):
glasses and be counselor in this and then take them
off and put on address and be like Lady six
in this other era. But I do, I do. I'm
starting to realize bringing it into session and bring it
in into practice, that there is this crossover that I
could that I could grow into and figure out a
way in which this is really beneficial. Because music is
so healing. We already know that, just as human beings
(11:29):
and knowing the kinds of soundtracks that really mark these
occasions in our lives, you know, we already feel that
sort of resonance. I think, so in the healing space,
I think it's there's definitely room to do that. And
I'm still I'm still that a tentative, investigative researching part
(11:51):
of the process, I think, but I definitely see I
definitely see a crossover and and I'm excited to continue
exploring that for sure.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
So the album is out on June first. The tour
kicks off mid June. It's a reasonably big tour too.
How excited are you to get in front of a
crowd and play this album live.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
Oh my gosh. Well, we haven't got the music together yet,
we haven't actually started rehearsal, so I'm just really anxious
to kind of map out exactly what will be delivered.
So I'm very excited because they want it to be
so super special, So I'm in that nervous kind of
mode have been like, We've got to get this exactly right.
But the album is really beautiful. Like I can't express
(12:33):
how proud I am of this record more than any
other that I've done, and so I think it's going
to be incredible and I just cannot wait.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
I cannot wait for it either. Thank you so much.
That was Caroline Tarmothy aka Lady six with us there
talking about her new album. It is out on June first.
LeVar is the name of it, and as we mentioned
there the two it's going to kick off in mid
June as well an Attenny one. She is amazing. Lines
are going to want to catch that.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin, listen
live to News Talks at b from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!