Musical Style and Influences
Improvisation, live and in the studio, has been the basis for Fat Freddy’s Drop's music since the beginning of their career. "Live performance is the most natural state for music," according to trumpeter Toby Laing. Most songs begin as a rhythm on Faiumu's MPC, and more sections are progressively added during jam sessions. Songs featured on the band's albums and singles are versions that have been refined over years of playing them in the studio, live in Wellington, and on tour abroad. Faiumu said that, on their first studio album, it was challenging to fit the long songs the band is used to playing into shorter album-length tracks.
Describing the band, National Public Radio host Guy Raz said, "Take the swagger of Jamaican dub, throw in a little Memphis soul and send it halfway down the globe, and what comes back? The band Fat Freddy’s Drop." The band has been categorised under many genres, and members say many of those genres helped shape their musical style: delta blues, jazz, dub, soul, techno, and contemporary rhythm and blues. Musical styles heard while on tour have also shaped their sound; Dr Boondigga and the Big BW was influenced by contemporary German, Portuguese, and Bhangra music while touring in the years before its release.
Faiumu and other band members say their biggest influence is their home country of New Zealand, and their peers in Wellington's "small-but-solid" music scene—Wellington's population was less than 180,000 in 2007. They feel their music "belong here in New Zealand, you can tell it came from this country." Fat Freddy's Drop's music has been categorised as Aotearoa roots music—meaning contemporary music inspired by Māori and Pacific Islander culture, even though they are a mixed-race group. Faiumu is a first-generation Samoan-New Zealander, Tamaira, Gordon and Kerr are native Māori, and the remaining members are descended from European immigrants. The success of roots groups in New Zealand is uncommon. According to the University of Canterbury's Sharon McIver, the commercial success of bands like Fat Freddy’s Drop and TrinityRoots is due to their lack of "overt political messages," or otherwise "in your face" lyrics. Recorded music by the band is often played in business, where other roots music is sometimes not accepted.
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