14 July 2023 - 0 Comments

Te Whanganui-a-Tara artist NahBo, the moniker of Taranaki Ah Young-Grace (Ngāti Ruanui, Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Ngāti Porou) is proud to share their sophomore album Feelings Inexplicable. Following on from their debut, Ruptured, Feelings Inexplicable offers up 19 tracks of punchy, no-holds-barred hip-hop/soul/RnB.

Listen Here

"This album has been an exercise in bringing my writing closer to my heart, and simplifying my production process so I can find flow more easily. I would describe my first album as establishing ways that I think, and this one is showing more of how I feel. There's more rubbing between Nahbo's POV and my personal experiences.

"It's messy, contradictory, fun, difficult, happy, and sombre, but all of it circling around the ideas of hope, and dreaming of other ways to live" - Taranaki Ah Young-Grace

NahBo is a character created by Taranaki to help them handle performing live and overcome the vulnerability of sharing art with the world. With an intricate backstory, NahBo is a character from the distant future, a place called 'Astronesia', where all the indigenous people worldwide have been given their land back, black liberation happened so long ago that it feels like a faint memory, where prisons sound like a sick joke, and everyone is cute and thriving.

"NahBo for some very sci-fi reason, either by accident or to satisfy some curiosity, ends up having their consciousness shot into my brain, and is having to live this timeline in a body that meets at a whole lot of marginalised identity intersections. NahBo's point of view is that everything about this timeline is, frankly, ridiculous, but also deeply sad. Like, they're kind of above it all I guess, but not unaffected. They're like, 'Who the fuck thought of capitalism anyways? This shit would not fly in 2369. Ludicrous. Absolutely ludicrous'".

Taranaki is a classically trained musician beginning at age 5, eventually studying Jazz at the University of Auckland. Playing in a ridiculous amount of bands, they currently study Te Reo Māori and Pacific Studies at Te Herenga Waka, playing bass and backup vocals for local rap icon, Mā, in addition to NahBo. A recovering alcoholic with great hair who has been sober for almost four years, Taranaki is proudly non-binary (pronouns they/them/theirs), a member of the 'Alphabet Mafia' AKA the LGBTQIA+ community, with heritage extending to Sāmoa, China, Ireland, Scotland, Germany and France.

Feelings Inexplicable will be available on all digital platforms from Friday 12th July, 2023, released in time for Matariki, via Empty Goon Records.

"I hope people find something for themselves in this body of work. Something that encourages them, makes them feel seen or less lonely. That's it really. Know that there is so much more we can have and do, so many more ways to live, if only we work together" - Taranaki Ah Young-Grace.

Comments

Return to News Archive