Summer reissue: In Final Mix, music journalist Yadana Saw chats with local musicians and listens to their latest tracks in the ultimate testing ground: the car. This episode is with young-gun hip-hop duo Church & AP. First published April 14, 2020. Independent journalism depends on you. Help us stay curious in 2021. The Spinoff’s journalism … Read more
The 2020 longlist for the APRA Silver Scroll Awards – New Zealand’s premiere songwriting awards – have just been announced. Here’s the full list of the 20 finalists, with the songs themselves to listen to. This morning saw the announcement of the longlist for the APRA Silver Scroll, New Zealand’s most prestigious music award recognising … Read more
In the new series Final Mix, music journalist Yadana Saw chats with local musicians and listens to their latest tracks in the ultimate testing ground: the car. The second episode is with young-gun hip-hop duo Church & AP. Their first big single, ‘Ready or Not’, dropped early last year. Almost immediately, Elijah Manū (Church) and … Read more
The K Road festival, which turned five on Friday, has reached mainstream-level popularity without compromising its local acts focus. While the old-timers encamped in The Studio to sing the Flying Nun classics, Josie Adams went exploring. Not even the most determined and fleet-footed fan could hope to make every one of the 46 acts across … Read more
The ‘Ready or Not’ hitmakers talk ambition, competition, and how things change when you accidentally become the most buzzed-about young rap group in the country. Church & AP didn’t plan for this. The rappers born Elijah Manū and Albert Purcell were still attending high school in Auckland’s central suburbs when they started working together, more … Read more
To celebrate the eighth season of this local institution, Hussein Moses goes behind the scenes of the series putting New Zealand rappers to the test. David Dallas is waiting. It’s mid-morning on a weekday in May and as he sits in the control room of Red Bull Music Studio Auckland, a camera crew sets up … Read more
What does a Sleater Kinney collaboration with St Vincent, an epic mashup, and the return of bro-music’s moodiest navel-gazers have in common? They’re all in The Spinoff Music’s best songs of May 2019. International ‘Hurry on Home’ by Sleater Kinney 2019, and the only thing that can save the world is a Sleater-Kinney song produced … Read more
For the first and last time, Henry Oliver gives his definitive account of The Spinoff’s best New Zealand music of 2018. Read it and get angry. Here it is, my ten best albums and ten best songs, all from Aoteroa, all released in 2018. The one rule: appearance on one list disqualifies that artist from … Read more
Yesterday, Jogai Bhatt talked with the people behind creative collective Nah Zone. Today, she talks with one of its closest musical collaborators, Church & AP. Church & AP is a rap duo comprised of Elijah Manu (Church), Nah Zone’s head writer, and Albert Purcell, the younger brother of Nah Zone’s founding director Jonique Purcell. The … Read more
Jogai Bhatt talks to the talent behind Nah Zone, a new underground collective showcasing music, writing and art on the internet and in the club. There’s no shortage of young talent in Aotearoa – it’s just a matter of keeping your ear to the ground. This is the ethos embodied by Nah Zone, an ambitious … Read more