"The signing was a huge thing," he tells TimeOut. "It took two weeks before it hit me. Then I fully just wept. I was sitting outside with my dad. And he said 'we did it' and I was like 'oh yeah' and I just started crying. The way he said it was really from the heart. Also when my daughter came up to me and told me she saw me on TV, that made me cry too. I cry a lot, man. It's been six years in the making so there have been lots of sad and happy tears."
The song was inspired by his daughter and spending time with her at a local park.
"She was just running around, she was very free. That's how I got the first few lines of the lyrics from that moment. That's how it started. I created the beat two weeks before that. I had a big Kygo influence for that. He's a beast."
Kings' love of music developed as a child, when he began learning just about every instrument under the sun.
"I started playing guitar and drums and things like that. I can play every instrument. I can play bass guitar, keyboard, drums yeah, and sing and rap and produce. Everything!"
"Every Sunday we used to have cleaning sessions around the house and [my Mum] would play Prince and Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Whitney Houston, all the old-school stuff, so I got really into music that way."
Kings records and produces all his music at Northcote's Awataha Marae, which his grandfather built and he says "it's where I will do it for the rest of my life".Meanwhile, Kings has his eyes firmly set on Lorde's crown, hoping to emulate the Kiwi singer's success.
"I want a Grammy. It's not for the statue. It's for the platform. I feel like you can reach a lot more people from the platform. I want to be able to change the world for the better, even if it's in a small way ."
But in the meantime, Kings' short-term goals include touring Australia and New Zealand, which he is excited about. "I haven't actually seen much of NZ. Then hopefully get over to Europe and then America too."
