Alex Casey talks to national treasure Suzy Cato about her new kids album, life after Dancing With the Stars and remaining zen about the pending future hellscape.

It’s been half an hour and I can’t get Suzy Cato to say a bad word about anyone or anything. Not The Wiggles (“full support to The Wiggles, man”), not ‘Baby Shark’ (“look, it’s a great song”) and not even the pending environmental apocalypse (“we’re in a really good position to make big change”). I don’t know what I was expecting from the woman who raised a generation, but it was still disarming to meet someone so unwaveringly positive about every single topic.

“I’m not going to pretend I don’t get out of bed on the wrong side some days, I’m only human” she tells me in a bustling Morningside café. “But it’s like I tell my kids – if something goes wrong, don’t let it cloud your entire day. It’s now right now, but if you take a big deep breath then you are in a new now.” The next thing she says is going to sound fake, but I promise you it is real. “Just sprinkle a little sunshine on your day, it changes everything.”

Sprinkle a little sunshine is also, incidentally, one of two new songs that she’s written for The Totally Awesome Kiwi Kids Album, an opportunity offered to her soon after Dancing With the Stars NZ. “We’ve got the artists that people know and love – the Anika Moas and the Craig Smiths – but we also tried to include a variety of artists from all over New Zealand.” Welling up, she tells me that kids have already started singing ‘Sprinkle a Little Sunshine’ in school assemblies.

I wondered aloud about what made the perfect kids song, recalling the terrifyingly sunny Y2K anthem about the end of times. “It’s something fun, something you can dance to, something that makes you want to join in,” says Cato. “It also needs to reflect being a Kiwi, so good humour and something about wiggling your bottom.” Repetition for kids is key, a trick that she learned during her time on You and Me, which first aired a whopping 25 years ago.

Even as a teenager, Cato always showed an interest in broadcasting. “Growing up in Kaikohe, the career options were basically hairdressing and working at the bank. Those were already taken, so I wanted to look further afield. She did her first work experience placement at WDC in Whangarei, before applying for a cadetship at Radio New Zealand. By the time she was 17, she had earned herself the title of the country’s youngest female radio announcer.

Somewhere between her time on radio and TV, Cato did a brief and surprising stint as a record label publicist in Auckland. She recalls carting Milli Vanilli around town as an early career highlight, and I nearly pass out thinking about them all being in the same room together. Perhaps their star power rubbed off on her, because it wasn’t long before she was requested to audition for The Earlybird Show with Russell Rooster.

“I got one shot to try it out in camera, in a tiny little slot before the news started. The following Saturday I was live on air,” she says. “It was a sink or swim situation.” Luckily, Suzy can swim, and she found herself thriving in the colourful, searingly positive world of children’s television. “I don’t know why, but it just felt right. It felt like going home, for me.” Two years later, she auditioned alongside 80 other people for the role as host of You and Me at the age of 23.

“When I got offered the job to do You and Me, it was a big commitment. It was one year contract, so I knew i’d have to either move or constantly be flying down to Dunedin.” People around her advised that sticking with children’s TV was taking a huge “step back” in the industry, but Cato was listening to a deeper call. “Every time I thought about not doing it, I burst into tears. Something within me told me that I had to go and do it.”

Her purpose became further crystallised as she began to receive letters from children from around the country experiencing child abuse. “I thought it was too much for me, too much of a responsibility for me to handle,” she says. “I tried to resign, but they wouldn’t accept it.” Instead, producers put her in touch with people who could help. “It was then that I realised there was more to kids TV than just having fun.” She still gets messages today from kids that they helped during that time.

Alas, network TV isn’t what it was in the 90s, and Cato is more aware than anyone of the implications that this can have for children’s television. “YouTube is full of dangerous stuff, creepy stuff,” she says. “I decided to make my own YouTube channel because there weren’t any local broadcasters looking for kids content at the time. I wanted to make a hub for kids to find stuff that was just for them, made by someone with a Kiwi accent.”

So how did the slime-mixing, mushy-bean making version of Cato cope with being sexed-up on Dancing With the Stars? “I always knew it was going to take me outside my comfort zone and push people’s perceptions of me a bit. I think there was this preconceived idea that I would still be in round glasses and Kozmik gear, you know?.” Any of those expectations were shattered April 18 2018, when she was announced as the final Dancing With the Stars NZ competitor in an internet-breaking video.

“I knew that video was going to go one of two ways, it could have been really ugly or it could go really well. But, as you could probably tell from the duck lips I was rocking in the video, I was going for gold.” As the second oldest person on the show – behind equally ageless deity Robert Rakete – she was daunted by her fellow celebrities. “Seeing all the young people being thrown around and going upside down and all the rest of it, I knew I just wanted to get as far as I could.”

Although she looks back fondly on Dancing With the Stars NZ, Suzy isn’t keen on diving back into another celebrity reality franchise. Celebrity Treasure Island, just for example? “It sounds too hard and intense. Food is very big part of my life.” I asked her if she watched any television herself, hoping for her to reveal something gnarly like Black Sails. “With my 13 year old, I watch The Good Doctor. That’s good family viewing that we can all watch and enjoy together.” When the kids go to bed, she’s back to her home office to work. Even her TV choices are wholesome.

During a recent recent Instagram Q&A session, Cato tells me she received a deluge of messages from adults seeking a feel good moment, whether it was “something beautiful”, or her favourite inspirational quotes. “I’m looking at how I might be able to provide some content for people slightly older. People are still looking for that positivity that they have found in the past with me. That’s very special, they aren’t asking me to do shots or take funny photos, they are looking for the good and the comfortable and I am A-OK with that.”

“It’s an honour and it’s a privilege to be a part of so many lives. I just wish we had more content that made people feel good instead of like an emotional wreck.” It seemed like an opportune moment to tell Suzy that I was stressed about the future. Our interview quickly turned into a therapy session, just as planned. “I know we are feeling anxious at the moment, but even by us talking about it, something is being done. We are being taught resilience and how to cope with anything.”

She quickly returns, on message as always, to the importance of New Zealand children in this conversation. “Look, we were able to implement recycling in the 80s entirely through teaching it to our kids. Our kids are a going to be massive part of the change we see in the world, we just need to make sure they don’t grow up with this immense burden on their shoulders. They still need to be able to have fun and be kids for as long as possible.”

Before Dancing With the Stars NZ, Cato thought things her career in kids entertainment was wrapping up. Now, it’s clear that she has still got a lot of work to do. There’s another kid’s album coming out, a music video to be released and a preschool album to work on – as well as a couple of projects she can’t tell me about without killing me. I look her dead in the eye and tell her I would love nothing more than to be murdered by Suzy Cato.

“It doesn’t look like I’m going anywhere, does it? Kiwi kids are just far too important an audience to me,” she says, gently welling up again. “They are so often forgotten in society, and there are too many opportunities for me to be able to use my profile to be able to change that.”

“So yes, I’m here to help them save the world.”

OG fangirl Tayi Tibble reviews Tommy Genesis’ new self-titled album.

I’m the OG Tommy Genesis fangirl. It’s just a fact. Sometimes it just be like that.

I’ve loved her since she was on her dark-wave Atlanta trap kick with Father and Awful Records. I loved her when she was pulling big school-girl x military general vibes with her first album World Vision (2015). I loved her when she sang “Angelina? Is that you?” cos that’s exactly what I say to myself when I look in the mirror. I lost my shit when she said “my burqa white reflect the sun” in ‘Vamp’, a song I listened to so much that my ex-boyfriend snapped the CD. Yeah, I burnt a CD. His car was shit. I listened to ‘Hair like Water, Wavy Like the Sea’ when I visited my marae on the East Coast for the first time and felt appropriately pissy about colonisation, but also like an indigenous mermaid. Hell! I even loved her before all that when she had that terrible Tumblr song ‘Yes Daddy’ in which she was lowkey terribly good.

As a self-proclaimed ‘fetish rapper’ Tommy says Daddy a lot. Tommy says Pussy a lot. Tommy says Tommy a lot. So before I launch into the review of her new self-titled album Tommy Genesis I feel compelled to say that even though I know it’s totally lame to be all like “I was on her before she popped off!” I was on her before she popped off. Sometimes it just be like that. I have mad taste.

I’ve definitely got better taste than my 18-year-old sister Aniqueja, though I have difficulty convincing her of this fact. Everything I like she dislikes on principle. This stems back to our childhood when we would play Bratz dolls and I would emotionally manipulate her into picking dumb dolls and clothes for my personal advantage. Mum (a Libra) would make us take turns picking items and I’d lie like “omg… I love that (ugly AF) dress” and her dumbass would pick the ugly AF dress. Eventually, she caught on, and in doing so developed a distrust in my so-called “likes and dislikes.” It was a very short-term thing for me to do because in the long term I lost my influence over her as her big sister.

In our adulthoods, this mistrust and loss of influence manifests in us fighting about rappers. I swear that in 2018 it’s the female rappers who are spitting the hardest and most innovative bars. Aniqueja, a tomboy, almost exclusively listens to men. I am constantly trying to put her on to female rappers and she is stubbornly nonchalant about all of them. All of them except one… Tommy Genesis.

So I wanted to know why Tommy Genesis made the cut into Aniqueja’s cold misogynistic heart, and not the other incredible female rappers I put her on to: Rico Nasty, Asian Doll, Megan Thee Stallion, Kari Faux, Quay Dash, DreamDoll, DomMonique, BbyMutha, Leikeli47, Saweetie etc. TBH, I could fill the entire Spinoff website with current female rappers that I love. I asked her and she said “nice hair style” then, “ahahahah nah idk” then she told me “IDK I just do it ain’t that deep.”

She’s right though. Tommy’s hair alone is enough to make you stan. And her face. She has a great face. Half Tamil, half Swedish, she’s hot as. But it’s the talent and the music that makes her my lil GOAT in the making. Like Lana Del Rey said in that Complex interview where she successfully dodged the topic of cultural appropriation, “I’m all about the music.”

Tommy Genesis (2018) is composed of a healthy 12 tracks including singles: ‘Tommy’, ‘100 Bad’, ‘Daddy’ and recently released ‘Bad Boy.’

The album opens with ‘God Sent’, a song about being on your god-given mission. “I’ve been on my god sent/ I’ve been moving mountains….. In love with my surroundings” etc. ‘God Sent’ and the closing track, ‘Miami’ has those fake pop reggae/tragic kingdom sounds as her single ‘Lucky’ which was included in The Spinoffs Best Songs Ever back in February. I was surprised to not see ‘Lucky’ on the album, which is a shame cos it includes the best lines of all time, “look at my face/ only thing more pretty is my pussy” and the song would have fit in well with the overall sound of this record. Tommy had even told fans to expect it on the album. “Every song on the album is a different genre,” she told Noisy, “This is my No Doubt album. There’s no rules. I just made what I wanted.”

There is definitely a diversity of sounds on the album, though I wouldn’t agree that every song belongs to a different genre. The next five tracks are classic bad bitch Tommy: ‘Rainbow’, ‘Bad Boy’, ‘100 Bad,’ ‘Daddy’ and ‘Play With It.’ They all slap. They’re all hard and fun AF. They all contain Tommy’s quintessential outrageous sexy lyrics.

In ‘100 Bad’ Tommy and Charli XCX link up and I’m thrilled cos Charli XCX is my fave pop star and I feel like I literally willed this collaboration into existence. Charli puts her bratty British bitch pop on the track and smoothly references her song ‘Vroom Vroom’ which is sick as. ‘100 Bad’ also features my favourite verse on the album.“…. tongue/ up and down the stick/ in the whip real low in the schoolgirl fit he talking/ scheming/ Bonnie and Clyde/ 100 bad bitches gonna ride or die.”

The first time my friend Raife aka Bunny Holiday and I heard the single ‘Daddy’ we were like “omg shhh bitch.” We were scandalised – and trust, we are scandalous ladies so it takes a lot to make us clutch our pearls. ‘Daddy’ is composed over a series of… well, sex noises topped with lyrics like “he wanna fuck up my make up” and “he calls me Daddy’s little geisha.” It’s extra. It’s geish. It’s for the gays. It compels bad behavior. But isn’t that the power of music? To move us out of ourselves? To elevate us into higher beings than we were before?

‘Play With It’ is similar. I can’t even quote it. Based on the title, only one can only imagine what she might be speaking of. ‘Rainbow’ is hard and sexy too, but also motivational/aspirational with lines like “takin’ the bag out (stack)/ never gon’ fade out” and the hook “I’ve been lookin’ for the rainbow / Gold teeth, on my wrists is pink gold.” And I mean, this song is called ‘Rainbow’ meaning it’s also out here for the LGBTQ community.

My favourite track on this album, however, is ‘Bad Boy.’ The beat reminds me of boy-racer rap circa 2005; the best period in music history. It also kind of reminds me of ‘Bad Girls’ by MIA and ‘Buttons’ by the Pussycat Dolls. The lyrics are weird as; “I’m tired and my bitches are weary / there’s a rope around my pussy just to hold me and kiss me.” Simply put… it bumps.  

The next four songs in a row, Tommy takes a break from spitting and sings instead, and even though I fell for Tommy Genesis the hardass miniskirted rapper, I’m not gonna limit her by being self-righteous about it obviously. I’m a good stan and these songs are cute.

‘You Know Me’ is a trappish flexy song about curving boys, but it’s still soft and sweet somehow. That’s kind of Tommy’s whole vibe; angelic bad girl. “I got needs, so many boys textin’ / You know me, I ain’t even really flexin’.” On this track, she also declares “I’m not straight/ There’s nothin’ you can do for me/ I don’t want your love, sedation or your jewellery” reminding everyone that she is an independent gay icon.

‘Naughty’ ft Empress Of, is a surprising favourite of the album. Totally not what I was expecting based on the title. It weirdly got me emotional and right in my feelings “I like this boy, he’s full of shit / He knows I know that it’s not love/ I won’t look back I’ll keep on walking/ Boy, I know that it’s not enough/ it’s naughty.”

‘Drive’ is all g. Sort of downbuzz western driving through a dessert with a bit of heartbreak sort of thing. “If you call, I’ll turn this thing around / If you want me back, you know I’m down.” ‘It’s Ok’ is sort of meh. I could do without TBH. The chord progressions sound like a Daughter song circa 2012-2013 aka the worst time for music. It’s the track I’m most likely to skip.

Thankfully the next track on the album, however, is the lead single, ‘Tommy’. ‘Tommy’ came out eons ago but still slaps. It’s withstood the test of time. It’s a Tommy Genesis classic. It’s hype AF. And yeah I wanna picture with Tommy.

The closing track is ‘Miami’. It’s sunny and sweet. It’s hot and tropical. It’s a good song to swelter to in summer. I mean, “I’m feeling pretty (all done up)/ I’m in my Fendi (The one you bought me)/
I’m by the poolside (livin’ up)/ Don’t need a bad vibe (please don’t push your luck with me)” is a huge mood for the holidays right? On the track, she also sings “I’m in the sunshine/ my future shine shine….” and she right though… 

I asked my sister again what it is about Tommy and her music that compelled her to stan despite her better anti-me judgement. She didn’t respond cos she’s sad like that. I had to make my own conclusions. Perhaps it’s because Tommy represents duality; hard and soft, masc and femme, both the daddy and daddy’s little geisha. Of course, the music is undeniably tight; the beats are sick, the lyrics are clever, surprising, and erotically charged. But above all, what I think really drew me to her and what I think is the big mood of Tommy Genesis as a whole is her autonomy. In a society that constantly shackles women with behavioural rules it’s absolutely intoxicating to experience a young LGBTQ, Woman of Colour being hot, cocky and extra AF.