Waiata Anthems - Lorde excerpt

Many things revealed themselves slowly to me while I was making this album, but the main realisation by far was that much of my value system around caring for and listening to the natural world comes from traditional Māori principles. There’s a word for it in te reo: kaitiakitanga, meaning 'guardianship or caregiving for the sky, sea and land'. I’m not Māori, but all New Zealanders grow up with elements of this worldview.

– Songwriter Lorde (Ella Yelich-O'Connor) on making te reo EP Te Ao Mārama, Stuff, 9 September 2021

Ella came into it with an open mind, and an open heart. She was very, very generous in terms of allowing for us to take the driver's seat, and was just engaging in a process of learning; it was learning for everybody.

– Mātanga Reo (language consultant) Hana Mereraiha on working with Ella Yelich-O'Connor (Lorde)

I've always just been the conduit really, in this whole process, where I've been able to bring artists together with mātanga reo, language experts, who can guide the artists through this process...

– Dame Hinewehi Mohi, at the end of this excerpt

I started writing about jumping off Bulli Point, which was something that my dad had done, his grandfather had done, and that I hope my children will do. That feeling of being in a body of water that you have a generational connection to...I was writing an album about the spiritual power of the natural world, specifically in the context of where we’re from, and I realised; oh, there’s a word for this — it’s kaitiakitanga.

– Lorde on her album Solar Power, The Spinoff, 9 September 2021

...I've never put these things into songs. I've never talked about jumping off Bulli Point or Te Pōporo, which is, you know, a rock jump into Lake Taupo that my Dad did as a kid, that I do. You know these are really like intimate parts of me, and also just the connection to the natural world which was definitely the running theme in the five waiata that we chose to translate...

– Lorde opens up about choosing 'Oceanic Feelings' for her te reo EP Te Ao Mārama, in this episode

Hine-i-te-Awatea is the maiden of the dawn — goddess of new beginnings. She’s the daughter of the sun. I welcome her at the end of the song.

– Lorde, on 'Hine-i-te-Awatea', the song which features in this episode, The Spinoff, 9 September 2021