Listener’s Songs of the Week: Troy Kingi goes hip-hop, Rita Ora ropes in Joel Little & Taika Waititi, and a Rolling Stone Pretender

by Troy Kingi featuring SWIDT

It seems Night Lords, the ninth in Troy Kingi’s ongoing project to record ten albums in a different genre over a decade will be a hip-hop one with this track with Onehunga crew SWIDT, the first of a collaboration-heavy record that will also have Diggy Dupé, Tom Scott, Melodownz, Mokomokai, and MĀ on the guest list. But it seems Kingi hasn’t traded his versatile funk-rock backing band for turntables – there’s still plenty of guitar scorch to this debut track with has the sort of 70s psychedelic soul leanings that found its way into lots of 90s hip-hop and echoes of the likes of The Roots. He may not be rapping up front but it sounds like Kingi has earned his dilettante exemption card yet again. – Russell Baillie

by Rita Ora

It’s produced and co-written by Joel Little, who brings a welcome, less-is-more touch to this restrained dance-pop track for Ora, normally a woman whose songs do like having the kitchen sink involved and which can tend to sound like collections of other pop hits’ best bits. It also marks a comeback by Taika Waititi, once an up-and-coming music video director last heard of directing retro-styled clips for the Phoenix Foundation in their early days. Obviously, he’s got more of a budget here and clearly, seeing Flashdance at a tender age has had a lasting influence – judging by the leg warmers, chair, and water for Ms Ora to splash about in. Should there ever be a show called “Real Housewives of Point Chevalier”, we have a theme song. – Russell Baillie

by Ron Wood featuring Chrissie Hynde

Rolling Stone Ron Wood is having a very big flashback. He’s got a double album anthology of his career, including his band co-writes and his earlier stints with the Faces, Rod Stewart, the Jeff Beck Group among others, as well as his seven solo albums. This track is one of the “new” ones, a song by New Orleans R&B godfather Allen Toussaint which a few British bands covered during the beat boom. Chrissie Hynde’s languid vocal gives it a bit of a sexual switcheroo as Wood and backers boogie happily on. You have to wonder: Do Hynde and Wood have the same hairdressers? – Russell Baillie

by the Rolling Stones

And also coming down the reissue pipeline is a super deluxe version of Black and Blue from 1976, the first Stones’ album on which Wood played and a patchy one at that. Their Shame, Shame, Shame was left off the original, possibly because it already had one daft disco track – Hot Stuff – at the beginning. But the strange thing – other than Jagger’s vocal sounding like Eric Idle’s Monty Python housewife – is that it’s a cover of bluesman Jimmy Reed’s song from 1964. But the Stones make it sound a lot like Shame, Shame, Shame, the Shirley & Company disco hit from 1974. – Russell Baillie

by Raiza Biza with JDRO

As a signal for a forthcoming album Pangea, this stripped-down beat, annoyingly good minimalist riff and breathless energy is an exciting, tight single from Rwandan-New Zealand rapper hooking up with Fijian-Australian JDRO. A celebration of enjoying wayward nightlife times and not that much about chapatis. Hard to shake off. – Graham Reid