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Ever get the feeling that the torch has well and truly passed to the next generation? When we were starting one million dollars back in 2001, Iva Lamkum was still at high school.

But today, Iva is fully-fledged solo artist from who seems to be following in the lineage of New Zealand contemporaries Ladi6 and Hollie Smith. Certainly her deep-throated soul-jazz style recalls somewhat both Hollie and Ladi.

Her 2008 single Kung Fu Grip plays on Iva’s Asian heritage (born in NZ, Iva is half-Chinese, half-Samoan), and is the centrepiece of a début EP that mines consistently popular characteristics of the New Zealand scene – live old-school beats, jazz, and an organic r+b/soul aesthetic.

Auckland producer/musician Andrew Spraggon featured Iva on Turn Around, a grack from the new Sola Rosa album Get it Together. If you want to know what the insides of an Auckland DJ’s record bag sound like, take a listen over on Bandcamp:

(A sidebar note: the trombone lick on Turn Around is played by Haydn Godfrey, an erstwhile one million dollars conspirator and one of a very few young professional trombonists in the NZ. He’s currently in Chicago studying with players from the Chicago Symphony.)