Young Kiwi popstar Theia reveals the Soundtrack to her Life. Photo / Dean Purcell.
Kitana - Princess Nokia
This has been my preparation hype song for pretty much all my photo shoots and also my first festival season over the summer, so it's really special to me. Kitana is a video game character too, so it's just all about being a bad-ass woman. I really love that. Princess Nokia's definitely been one of my faves for several years now.
Baby One More Time - Britney Spears
I was 8 when this came out and I absolutely adored Britney. I just loved how confident and sassy she was, but also how she was dressed in the coolest clothes. Since then I've grown to adore her music and I feel like she's the absolute peak of pop. I love what she represents as well; she's literally just being herself and yeah, she's had her good and bad moments but that's life, you know?
Brooke Candy - Das Me
This is literally one of the coolest, most confident songs ever and I love Brooke Candy - I saw her twice at Whammy within the space of about two months and I just performed very recently at Whammy myself, so I felt her spirit very much. She's dope, I really respect her as an artist and she's definitely inspired a lot of my newest work that I'm making. Das Me, in particular, is a dope song because she's pretty much just saying; "Next time anyone calls you a slut / Brooke Candy tells me not to give a f***" - that's like the main lyric. It's really cool.
Amy Winehouse - Back to Black
Amy is definitely one of my favourite artists of all time. She's always definitely inspired me with her honesty and emotion and just how autobiographical and vulnerable her music is and that's always been kind of like a premise for me. It means that you can, as a songwriter, talk about what you know and all of your hurt. It's just a really, really cool way to get it out there. I just adore Amy and her artistry.
Firestarter - The Prodigy
The first CD I ever bought for myself with my pocket money was the Charlie's Angels Full Throttle soundtrack and I was just obsessed with it as a little girl - I was maybe 11. I loved Firestarter and I was so blessed to be able to see their performance maybe shy of a week or so before Keith [Flint, singer] passed away. Honestly, that's one of the coolest soundtracks I think I've ever seen in a movie, it was really, edgy and cool and for such a feminist, dope film. This song is from the shot in the film where Drew Barrymore is walking through fire after escaping her abusive boyfriend who's in a gang so it's just really fitting and amazing.
Black Skinhead - Kanye West
Yeezus is my favorite album of Kanye's and I just love the song and the premise - it really is timeless in terms of race relations, and I guess the current climate of America. He's like; "Middle America packed in / came to see me in my black skin" and then he references, if you see him with a white chick, "they're gonna come and kill King Kong". He's seen as a menace because he's black and also sells shows so it's that whole [dichotomy]. It's also been really inspirational for me with my current music because I love how industrial it is. And the production is just incredible. Everything about that song I just I really respect and love.
Ka Pīoioi E - Tainui waiata
This has always been the song in kapa haka that I would lead and also the one that my beautiful kui would always asked me to sing just for her, at home, in the car or in front of other people. So it's kind of just got all those ties to it and it's also a Tainui waiata which is really cool because I am from Tainui. With what it speaks about, it's almost like Roam, which is the first song I wrote, because it's all about the importance of staying connected to your roots and returning to your marae and where you're from and not losing that connection, and how beautiful it is to return to nature and where you're loved.
Ebony Lamb performs Successful Feelings. Made with funding from NZ On Air. Video / Locals Only