{"id":6435,"date":"2023-07-13T17:39:20","date_gmt":"2023-07-13T05:39:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=6435"},"modified":"2023-07-13T17:39:20","modified_gmt":"2023-07-13T05:39:20","slug":"rising-star-musician-paige-tapara","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=6435","title":{"rendered":"Rising star: Musician Paige Tapara"},"content":{"rendered":"

Paige Tapara wanted to be a pop star from the first time she saw\u00a0The Lizzie McGuire Movie<\/em>\u00a0in 2003. Now 25, she says her passion for music grew from her upbringing in Clark\u2019s Beach, south Auckland.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy parents are music lovers. There was always music in the house,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think living in a very secluded small rural beach town encouraged me to spend more time on creativity and music rather than hanging out with friends.\u201d<\/p>\n

The singer-songwriter says that when she was growing up she felt she should be good at playing the guitar because she was M\u0101ori.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo many beautiful waiata involved acoustic guitar. You could say that influenced me to start playing it,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Tapara (Ngati Maniapoto) started getting her music out there early, uploading her first song cover on YouTube when she was 12. In 2020, she became \u2018Billie Eilish Approved\u2019 after the American singer-songwriter shared a screen recording from Tapara\u2019s Instagram page.<\/p>\n

Since then, she\u2019s ticked off a long list of achievements, signing to Sony Music, performing in stadiums across the motu with Drax Project and Six60, and winning \u2018Best M\u0101ori Female Solo Artist\u2019 at the Waiata M\u0101ori Music Awards. She\u2019s also released two successful EP\u2019s;\u00a0Always Growing<\/em>, and the self-recorded\u00a0On My Own<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\n

I grew up in a very P\u0101keh\u0101 neighborhood, so it\u2019s been a bit of a struggle to remind myself that I am a part of the M\u0101ori music industry.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cThe biggest highlight would really just be the fact that when I play my own shows, people actually show up for me and sing my songs back to me, which feels so beautiful,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Even so, the ebb and flow of a musical career has been hard to get used to.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou go from getting to perform and connect with people, to doing nothing and having a quiet environment,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI found that quite hard after releasing my first EP. It was a learning curve for me and taught me how to be thinking ahead with projects.\u201d<\/p>\n

Social media success is one thing, feeling comfortable owning her space in the music business is something completely different, she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s tough for me to think about the fact that I even exist in the M\u0101ori music industry because I struggle a lot with imposter syndrome.<\/p>\n

\u201cI grew up in a very P\u0101keh\u0101 neighborhood, so it\u2019s been a bit of a struggle to remind myself that I am a part of the M\u0101ori music industry.\u201d<\/p>\n

Visibility is important to her; Tapara purposefully makes it known that she\u2019s a queer M\u0101ori artist. She says she wished she had that example when she was growing up.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt feels like I have an important role to play for people who are walking down the same path, which is a bit scary, but also motivating and makes me want to set a good example.\u201d<\/p>\n

She’s grateful for support from her industry peers.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody has been very supportive in my reo journey and connecting with my M\u0101oritanga which has been really beautiful and encouraging,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

She’s also looking forward to deepening her knowledge about Matariki.<\/p>\n

“Honestly I never learnt much about Matariki until I lost my aunty on Matariki in 2021. It\u00a0taught me to reflect on those I\u2019ve lost and reflect on the year that\u2019s just passed, but to be honest now Matariki\u00a0really just reminds me of my Aunty. I\u2019m hoping now that Matariki has become a public holiday I can learn more about it.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

VIA RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Paige Tapara wanted to be a pop star from the first time she saw\u00a0The Lizzie McGuire Movie\u00a0in 2003. Now 25, she says her passion for music grew from her upbringing in Clark\u2019s Beach, south Auckland. \u201cMy parents are music lovers. There was always music in the house,\u201d she says. \u201cI think living in a very […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":6436,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[222,174],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news","category-nz-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6435"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6435\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6437,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6435\/revisions\/6437"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}