Malo Ioane Luafutu - aka Scribe - says he's learning to manage the childhood trauma detailed in a new documentary, but he accepts it will never truly disappear.
Scribe - Return of the Crusader Photo: Velvet Photo & Cinema - John Ross
The rapper told Music 101's Charlotte Ryan he felt "amazing" now that the TVNZ documentary directed by Chris Graham, called Scribe: Return of the Crusader, was out in the world.
"When it first came out I kinda went into, like ... lockdown-mode and didn’t really like go out but now that I’ve processed a little bit of it I feel so much better."
He said the positive response to the raw documentary, which details his drug addictions and the abuse he received from his father as a child, had resonated with people and he had received "hundreds of messages" from those who related to his story.
It's a project that took time to put together in part, said Scribe, because it needed the right director to bring it to fruition.
"I really, you know, needed to make it with Chris (Graham) because I trusted him."
A previous attempt to make the documentary with a different crew hadn't felt right for such a personal story, he said.
"It was my turn to tell my story after the media had told my story, so I felt like the only real way for people to understand me is for me to tell the truth."
Before entering rehabilitation for his now well-documented struggles with drug addiction, Scribe was seemingly at the top of his game.
He picked up seven of the nine awards he was nominated for at the 2004 New Zealand Music Awards, including album of the year for The Crusader.
But behind the scenes, he was struggling and his attempts to deal with his new-found fame pushed his long-term drug abuse to a new level.
"I was diagnosed as a functioning junkie so, you know, because I’d been a drug abuser my whole life ... so that was actually my normal, except for you know, once methamphetamine came into it, that’s a whole different galaxy of being drug-fucked."
M.C Scribe Photo: Supplied / The Downlow Concept
While he doesn't blame the fame directly for his steep decline, he said it brought to the surface feelings of inadequacy that he'd suppressed for years.
"I didn’t realise my addiction was related to my trauma, I just thought my addiction was something separate; that I was just a slave to P."
That trauma was in the form of beatings he'd received from his father during his childhood in Christchurch.
Scribe said his time in rehabilitation had helped him to understand why he'd previously turned to drugs to cope, instead of confronting what he'd experienced.
"Everything you’re processing as a child is from a child’s brain so, for me, you know, when our dad was hitting us and telling us that’s love ... as a young child trying to process that I processed that as ‘I’m not good enough’ for a dad to just wanna do dad things; because, you know, we’d see other dads with their kids at the park ... and interested."
Those feelings of not being "good enough" remained with him and eventually turned into self pity and resentment.
"That resentment, you know, it just poisons you."
Scribe said at the height of his success it wouldn't have mattered if someone had told him he was the best rapper in New Zealand.
"It doesn't matter what anyone says ... that does not translate in my mind, I still feel like shit, I still feel not good enough … that’s the danger of a negative self-narrative."
Scribe - Return of the Crusader. Photo: Supplied
The fact he'd been so immersed in the creative process of putting together The Crusader also meant his sudden stardom came as a surprise.
"I didn’t like it and I didn’t like that reality. I didn’t like people looking up to me … didn’t like … kids looking at me for hope because I just didn’t feel that way," he said.
“Being successful and being an idol and a role model was something that I never wanted to be.”
Despite the long journey to where he is now, Scribe said he was in a "healing space" and had forgiven his father.
"My dad was who he was, you know, he was a drug dealer, he was a drug addict, he had his own trauma ... he didn’t even know how to be a dad because he was brought up in the system, you know, as a ward of state, so a lot of trauma he had was projected onto us and a lot of the fears he had just translated into violence."
“That was a massive part of my stint in rehab ... understanding that it’s not my dad’s fault, you know, and it’s not my fault, and you just learn to get on and … just be grateful."
Watching the documentary hadn't been difficult for him because he was so intimately involved in its production, Scribe said.
“In saying that … when I did watch it on TVNZ with my family, it was the first time I got to watch it from the third person (point of view) and we were all just like, just really relieved … and happy that the story was told in such a good way.”
Scribe: Return of the Crusader can be viewed at TVNZ on Demand.
