Emcee Lucia makes NZ hip-hop history with debut album

By REBECCA BARRY

For someone who has just become the first New Zealand female MC to release an album, Emcee Lucia sure took her time. The 30-year-old dabbled in hip-hop for nine years before she decided she was ready to record On the Cusp, a fresh, melodic trip through sweet vocals, laidback rhymes and soulful, jazzy production.

It took a year to finish as she tried to fit studio time around her day job working at K Rd eatery Verona. Then there were the frustrating few days she spent trying to convince Scribe to join her. "I spent about a week going, 'Do you want to be on this track?' and he's like, 'Yeah, yeah, yeah' and it took ages. In the end I was like, 'Forget it'."

Scribe, who has since become local hip-hop's biggest star, eventually turned up to the studio to do his bit for the fiery, guitar-fuelled track The Deal. But of the nine tunes on the album, bFM listeners will probably recognise the Sisters Underground-style Subscribe 2 Me and All this Time, bittersweet numbers that combine her ability to rap with singing.

A year ago she didn't even know she could sing. "It's kind of scary getting out there, being a female. All the times I've been to open mic nights and seen all the guys there and thought, 'Oh my god!'

"Also, getting myself out there and being open for people to criticise. But you get over that. I had to get over the procrastinating, think, don't be scared and just have faith in myself."

Not that Lucia Ablett is lacking in attitude. It's what fuels her. "I've always got a bit of attitude, even at work or in the studio. I'm just me. If I'm recording I'll have to take myself back to the time when I wrote it. It gives me the attitude to be able to record it. You've got to have the attitude when you rhyme, you've got to feel it."

She grew up in Wellington and learned classical guitar and was too scared to tell her teacher she would rather play the piano.

She says she wasn't the best student but spent a lot of time writing poetry and wondering what she was going to do with her life.

"It's weird, my mum and dad aren't musical at all. I just somehow developed the ability to write rhymes. I had a really good upbringing. We went to Samoa every Christmas. I was really bad at school. I just wasn't really into it - I always thought there was something missing."

That turned out to be hip-hop, and when she left school at 18 she started hanging out with a collective of hip-hop artists, spending her weekends soaking up her friends' creativeness, particularly Wellington MC Kos.

"They would freestyle all night long and I'd dig it because I was really into hip-hop. And he'd be like, 'Come on Lucia, freestyle'. I was a bit shy, so I went home that night and started writing rhymes, and then one night I busted out a freestyle and he was blown away. I thought, 'Okay, I've got it if I have his respect'."

She also became interested in soul, funk and collecting vinyl, later taking up DJ-ing but ended up studying chefing and working for a short time in hospitality. The experience left her burned out and she took off to Samoa for three months to unwind.

Then in 1995 she followed a friend to Auckland and started playing the odd gig at some of the inner-city's smaller venues.

Ask her about the past loves she refers to on the album and her gaze drifts and she breaks out in a trademark cheeky smile. "Stuff like unrequited love and the Baddest which is like, 'Check me out, pick me, I'm the one for you'. Every girl goes through that."

Not that Ablett is exactly a girl any more. She agrees she might be something of a musical late bloomer. "I thought I've got to do it now - it's now or never. I'm getting on. A lot of MCs are young.

"I've definitely got the experience after nine years, I've always got something to talk about. You don't want it to be boring or harp on about just anything. I want to catch people's attention."

On CD

* Who: Emcee Lucia, New Zealand's first female rapper to release an album

* What: On the Cusp

* When: Out now