Maia Rata

Maia Rata is an example of a true performing male vocalist. This young mans ability to genuinely grab your attention when he opens his mouth to sing is truly unique and reminiscent of the era of outstanding male singers during the Mo-town days. However Maia is not from the northern American or Europe, Australia for that matter. This distinctly soulful yet powerful sound comes from what he likes to call “the real down under” Aotearoa or known as New Zealand to the international community. “This is the most beautiful place on the earth, how can I not sing sweetly about it. Its just it’s a long way away from the rest of the world so I’m going to have to have some extra volume” He chuckles. This is an example of what this man wants to archive with his music. A mixture of soul and power, sweet and sour and all in between. This is what the new breed of standouts needs to have and he does. Schooled at St Peters College during the late 90’s Maia picked up the saxophone and played in the famous concert bands the school was producing. He still plays the horn but realised its impossible to play and sing at the same time, so deciding to learn the guitar a singer/ songwriter was born. After ST Peters Maia moved to Northcote College where many of the current elite musicians in NZ were fostered (Hollie Smith, Godfrie de Grunt, etc) Schools out! After high school Mr Maia Rata had established himself as the go to guy for NZ hiphop artists and producers in the early 2000s with the help of Disruptiv entertainment. Adding vocal colour to some times heavy rap topics was turning out to be a skill soon to be realised. He has worked with most of the major hiphop labels in NZ and heavyweight artists include Scribe, P money and collaboration with 4 Corners which resulted in a top 20 placing on the NZ singles chart and a smooth video directed by Mark Trethewey. “ A highlight of mine was opening for the International super hiphop group, ‘People under the stairs’. During this time Maia had been busy establishing other projects like his solo works. “We, as in me and Jonny from Disruptiv had leaked one of my R&B tracks to urban and Iwi stations” this would peak at 16 on the urban charts though it was an unofficial release and done to test the waters. Happy with the result but conflicted with the music Maia set out to discover himself and what he believed to be his sound. “I think at this point Usher, you know that type of thing, R&B and hiphop was big and I got caught in the hype. After I realised I didn’t want to pursue a type of Pacific pop R&B I knew I had to experiment with my music’s” Another project to bare fruits during this time for Maia was a band with friends called EASY. Whom are still together today. The sound of this band could be described as Funky dub porn rock and is as individual as the description of their sound. The band has won the 2006 AUT Battle of the Bands. Live gigs include the Grey Lynn Festival 2006 & 2007, MVP Supershow, supporting Definate and Bling, Waiheke Island's Culturefest, Lothlorien Festival, Auckland Seafood Festival 2007, Ponsonby Market Day 2008, Shore Sounds Summer Series 2008 (support billed for Che Fu & The Krates) and have been playing around town at venues including The Rising Sun, Vesbar, Rakinos, The Dog's Bollix and Kingsland's Ivy bar. Other big things for this group are some of the supporting act slots for bands like Katchafire, Black seeds, D dub and Batucada sound machine to name a few. After all of this experience Maia is now settling down to write his debut album titled ‘Brave tree’, which he intends for release in mid 2009. The feel of this album will contain very carefully crafted acoustic songs with use of extra instruments like orchestral strings, to a funk based soul track that sounds like something Quincy Jones cooked up and prepared earlier. Maia believes he can add to the amazing standard of male singers to come out of Australasia. Singers like Che Fu, Guy Sebastian and the Kora family. “Singing for me, is a way of life not a phase” Maia Rata."Easy" (Band) Gatt- Dan Pilkington Gatt/ Keys/ percussion- Perry Hopper. Bass- Jarred Greenwood. Drummer- Richard Beckmannflay. Vocals/ Alto sax- Maia RataIm also involved with a band project under the banner of Easy. To discribe our sound I'd say its all across the board, influences always play apart in style and our influence is the last hunderd years in music history. We wont to contribute to this history aswell. The track "Get together" on my page is an Easy track.