Aotearoa’s enduring soul diva Aaradhna is riding in the driver’s seat. After an eight-year hiatus, the Samoan-Indian singer-songwriter finally debuted her fifth studio album, Sweet Surrender, in November last year.
“I put a whole lot of myself into this,” says Aaradhna – whose full name is Aaradhna Jayantilal Patel – of the self-produced album. “It’s the most ‘me’ that it can be.”
For the first time in her career, the Kiwi R&B singer, 40, took full creative control, writing and producing a set of tracks that are much more honest and personal than her earlier work.
She says the music landscape is so much faster now than it was when she dropped her Brown Girl album in 2016 – and even more so since she started out. People want instant gratification and guaranteed hits. She calls it simply “microwave material”.
However, she isn’t fazed by the changing times.
“As long as I’ve stayed true to my craft and true to who I am, I shouldn’t really feel too worried about the outcome,” she shares. “Because when you put your soul into something and you’re honest with what you do, the thing that you love, only good can come from that.”

Aaradhna, who was raised by her Indian father and Samoan mother in Porirua, started on this new music in 2017, often working at “gargoyle times” when everyone else was asleep. Layer upon layer, the music took shape and sometimes the purpose of her music came to her after it had been written.
Her song Beautiful Ones took on a whole new meaning after her mother’s recent passing.
“I kind of had a little breakdown because I finally knew what it was about,” she explains.
Aaradhna says she’s shed her fair share of tears for her beloved mum.
“It’s about feeling what you need to feel,” she shares. “You can feel that sadness, but don’t stay in it. You’re still here and you have to remember the things that give you joy.”
Aaradhna has added pieces to the album over the eight years, new layers of meaning as her life changed, so that by now, the work is a mosaic of her experience. “It’s a piece of me – it’s alive,” she smiles.
She calls herself an “overthinking snail”, but she’s trying to speed up her internal process a little.

“It’s like a rollercoaster, but I’m loving where I’m at right now. There are days where I’ll be at war with myself, but I feel like that’ll always be around – me questioning myself. But I wouldn’t be who I am now without those questions.”
The singer-songwriter recently returned from an extended stay in India. What was intended to be a two-week trip to Kolkata turned into a month-long sojourn during the monsoon season.
“I felt like India was calling me,” she tells. “I kept looking at pictures, listening to music, asking my dad questions, just wanting to be there. When it was raining and warm with lightning, it looked like a movie.”
It was there she shot visuals for Sweet Surrender – below a grove of majestic, old mango trees that no longer bore fruit.
“I hope that one day I can feel like that,” she says. “When I can’t bear more fruit, but I’m still here, I’m strong. And you can still feel that feeling of magic, even if there’s nothing else. As long as you stay rooted in your beliefs, that’s the feeling you can bring to others and also to yourself.”

Aaradhna thinks back to her younger self. At age six, she was “a little brat – you couldn’t tell me anything”. But now she says, “Be proud of your roots. This is what runs in your blood. There’s only one you.
“When I was a teenager, I doubted myself a lot. I would tell my teen self, ‘You are whole. This is who you are – you need to represent.’”
She’s coming back to that part of herself with confidence and so much stronger.
How does she represent? By pronouncing her name properly, the way her father says it, complete with the rolled R. Aaradhna says, “I know what I want, where I come from and where I’m going.”
And she still loves her music.
“I thought the older I’d get, I’d lose passion for it, but I’m glad I still have that fire.”