A tale of two Scribes

Shaun Bamber talks to rapper and playwright Scribe about his latest project.

Like the title says, this is a tale of two Scribes. There’s Scribe the family man and artist – devoted to his brother Matthias, who speaks earnestly and eloquently about their play The White Guitar, which the two co-wrote and perform with their father John Luafutu.

Then there’s the other Scribe, who – well, let’s just say you don’t want to p*** him off.

I met Scribe – real name Malo Luafutu – at Auckland’s Q Theatre, where The White Guitar will make its Auckland premiere on July 6 after an earlier run at the Hannah Playhouse in Wellington from June 29. A publicist, and The White

Guitar’s director Nina Nawalowalo, were there too.

We had a private room set aside upstairs for our interview. A piano sat in the corner, empty glass on top, painting a picture in my mind of some Billy Joel-esque ivorytinkler belting out tunes between sips of liquor. I was going to ask Scribe if it might have been him sitting at the piano, but it quickly became apparent that banter like that wasn’t going to come easy.

It seemed Scribe hadn’t been fully briefed on just who he would be talking to. Upon finding out we would be filming portions of the interview for Stuff, he refused to allow it.

‘‘I’m not doing a filmed interview for Stuff,’’ he declared. ‘‘I’ve had problems with some of the s*** they wrote about me.’’

‘‘No, the last one was good,’’ claimed the publicist, attempting to placate the 37-year-old rapper. ‘‘We liked the last one.’’.

At this point I beat a hasty retreat, leaving the publicist to work her magic while I met our photographer, who had just arrived out front. Warning him as we ascended the stairs, I was relieved to find everything now seemed sorted – for the time being.

Having originally played to sold-out audiences in Wellington and Christchurch last year, The

White Guitar is based on the reallife stories of its participants and protagonists, the three Luafutus. ‘‘What’s in there is all real, really happened, and all three of us were part of that story as it played out in real life,’’ explains Scribe.

Based in part on a book written by Scribe’s father, A Boy Called

Broke, the play was originally meant to be a one-man show starring his brother Matthias, but the multi-platinum-selling rapper eventually – and somewhat reluctantly – came on board as well.

‘‘I didn’t want to do it. But I’d do anything for my brother, and he asked me. I said to him, ‘Do you need me, do you really need me to do this? Tell me you need me and I’ll do it, otherwise I don’t want to’. And he said I need you to do it. So here I am.’’

The White Guitar is, in Scribe’s own words, ‘‘pretty confronting’’. Asked for a taste of what audiences will see, he shares what is a scene in the play and obviously an affecting real-life family memory.

‘‘When I was born, my dad was in jail, and we play out that scene. Because my dad was a drug dealer in Christchurch. He got arrested when my mum was pregnant, and so he did five-plus years. And that was really – I don’t know.’’ Scribe pauses here, as if remembering an event he wasn’t actually present for. He’s pushing the words out now, like they’re coming from somewhere real deep down.

‘‘I always feel it because my brother’s in that scene – he was only 6 when the cops came and invaded our house and my dad grabbed the samurai sword.’’

It’s an incredible thing to share one-on-one, let alone up on stage in front of a theatre full of people – and as Nawalowalo adds, the whole play is ‘‘very brave storytelling, very courageous’’.

Which makes it all the more surprising when a seemingly