Jazzed up

Tom Scott’s been through the ringer since the halcyon days of his Auckland-based hip-hop collective, Home Brew.

That group hit the top of the charts, but then Scott released a song with his next group, @Peace, that was timed for the 2014 election called “Kill the PM”. All hell broke loose. Apart from its threat on the life of then-Prime Minister John Key, Scott also boasted in its lyrics that he was going to have sex with the politician’s daughter. He was investigated by the police, and for a time became a media pariah.

But that was then. Now in his 30s, Scott ended up eking out an existence in Melbourne before fathering a child and returning to his ’hood, Avondale, the suburb he has so articulately described on his new album, Avantdale Bowling Club, which is a celebration of a kind, an expansive paean to the place that raised him and where he belongs.

But Avantdale Bowling Club is nothing like a conventional hip-hop record, if it can be described as such. There’s no boom-bap or Otara bass to be found here. Instead, Scott has hired the crème de la crème of local jazz players to create a smoky background to emote over.