Musical Offspring Where The Wild Beets Are

The Tui Award Winner’s Joy of Music Is a Family Affair
 

- Ciara Pratt

If you were to visit a certain household in Takaka, you would most likely hear it before you saw it. That’s because it happens to be the home of New Zealand’s top children’s musician, Levity Beet.

Fresh after winning a Tui at the New Zealand Children’s Music Awards, the sounds of guitars, ukuleles and the lesser known honkygoosafone and fizzunkafone – instruments Levity (45) invented himself – soar through the hallways. But the music isn’t just coming from Levity any more – his 11-year-old daughter Malaika is following closely in her father’s footsteps.

“I’m starting to be a bit more in her shadow, especially locally – she’s become a bit of a star,” Levity laughs. “People keep asking her to play at parties and the other day she got asked to play at a wedding.”

“Our house is noisy!” adds Malaika. “I’ll start playing a song I like and Dad will see me playing, then come and play the ukulele to it.”

Entering the world of children’s music wasn’t initially on the cards for the father-of-two, although with a name like his, it would be hard to see him in an industry that wasn’t creative!