Tāmaki Makaurau rapper Melodownz tells us about his first gig, first car, a short-lived pet goldfish and more in this week’s episode of FIRST. 

Melodownz is an acclaimed Avondale artist / MC / poet who you might have seen interviewing the likes of John Campbell and Paddy Gower over a bowl of kava in his YouTube series Kava Corner.

Back in the day, however, it would have been more like Cuppa in the Corona. The popular pre-2000s Toyota sedan, an ancestor of sorts to the modern Camry, was Melodownz’s first car. And it had all the ingredients required to make a cup of tea in the back seat for some reason.

“It was actually my mum’s [car]”, he remembers. “My mum gave it to me… It was an old as car.” Maybe this explains how it came to have tea bags and “little milk things” in the back? Just one special feature of a truly classic first car.

“Shout out the Corona. All my boys remember the Corona, yeah.”

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Watch Kava Corner on YouTube and listen to Melodownz on Bandcamp and Spotify.

This episode of FIRST was made with the support of NZ On Air.