The War for Auckland briefly flees the stinking cauldron of hot takes for the cool waters of beautiful music, as Lake South explains his new track Renters.

I wrote Renters because that’s Auckland for me in 2016. All my friends talk about is paying too much rent for shitty flats. They say they can’t tell the landlord about the leaks because he’ll raise the rent. They talk about the Government destroying people’s homes in Glen Innes. They lament the demise of state housing.

All I read in the paper is rising prices for houses I could never afford in the first place. Another fortune made. Another million dollar suburb (and now a million dollar city).

I’m lucky to have a cheap flat out the back of the Balmoral shops. We’re surrounded by pigeons and extractor fans, but we have it pretty good.

I’m reluctant to write protest songs when I have it this good – so I write love songs.

Renters is a love song. It’s about loving the place you live in. It’s about realising the connection you have to the place you grew up in, and respecting those who let you have this connection. It’s about the people that make a city worth living in.