I met Smoke in 2017 when we were in Roundhead together. He was working on some SWIDT stuff and I was working on Nazarite. I think we just clicked and started having a few sessions here and there. He sent me the beat for Precious and I had it in my phone for years, every now and then I would pull it up and just sing “precious” over and over again. So eventually it became a fully developed song, but it stayed in the bank for another 2 years after that before we actually recorded it.

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I think Precious was one of those stream of consciousness type of tracks, it wrote itself, and even though it was bits and pieces over years, it’s like the song would come back to me whenever I was ready to work on it. It never felt hard, and I never lost interest in it.

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When we shot the video, I wanted to show my friends from Auckland all the things I value about my hometown. Fable came along to check it all out so it only made sense for him to be in the video. The more we delved into what is beautiful about Mahurangi, the more I understood that what I truly wanted to express was the value in my whānau. I have such beautiful inspiring parents who have unlocked so much happiness in the last few years after they moved into their bus. Things are simple and you can see how much joy and life it has brought back to them. And I love my siblings, being the mātāmua in my family meant that I’ve got to watch them all grow into really incredible people and understand that growth.

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We are all on some magical shit, so of course the video had to be about all of us.