New Zealand musician and songwriter Jaqualyn (Jaqi) Taimana Williams is a dynamic force in the Aotearoa music scene. A songwriter of gutsy indie rock for adults and a celebrated bilingual creator for tamariki, Jaqi bridges generations and cultures through song.
Even though she wrote her first “real” song at age 7, Jaqi’s professional music career didn’t really start until age 18 at the Arts Centre in Christchurch fronting a covers band formed by university students. She ended up playing keyboard, vocals and guitar professionally in Christchurch’s top hotel bands and duos. Over the years Jaqi has gradually accumulated an extensive range of original, catchy and very Kiwi songs. These range from indie rock and roots, comedy songs, parodies, songs written in te reo and bilingual songs for children.
A self-described Polynesian Asian Caucasian – Jaqi is a mother of four, kuia of one, stand-up comedian and qualified early childhood teacher.
Jaqi released her exhilarating and engaging debut 16 track rock/pop album Statues of Liberty in October 2019 at age 50. Recorded at Kog Recording Studio with the track production expertise of Tim Skedden (The Feelers, Babysitters Circus) and the mastering skills of Chris Chetland, this collection of songs represents her most popular works emerging over decades of songwriting and performing. The album features one song in te reo, Waiho Mai, which reached the Top 100 on Dunedin Student Radio in 2024.
“It’s a triumph for me, a body of work that is truly dynamic and diverse and plays through beautifully as a whole album.”
In 2015, Jaqi recovered from a partial mastectomy at North Shore hospital and went on to create the eight-song bilingual children’s album Waiata Tamariki with Ian Rushton at Blacksands Studio. Jaqi combined her professional teaching skills and language learning knowledge with her natural songwriting talents to create a teaching resource for language learners in Aotearoa. A follow up eight-song album Waiata Tamariki 2 was released in 2022. NZ On Air funded four music videos for four tracks from the album, and one was selected to be aired in the Show Me Shorts film festival 2022.
Tracks from the children’s albums are getting radio airplay in NZ, Australia and the USA mainly. In 2020, Jaqi performed live at Urban Flava, a Music For Parks event in South Auckland just before the first lockdown and has become an annual feature at the Hamilton Arts Festival Hub.
In 2023 Jaqi released a five-track EP Guns Of Dialogue featuring her third te reo rock song, Naaku which was performed live in 1999 for TV2’s music show, Ground Zero. Working with music education organisation ONZA and mentored by Senior Auckland University lecturer Robyn Trinick, Jaqi has delivered teacher workshops based on retelling Māori legends through sound and movement.
“I do this as a language learner as much as a teacher. I was not brought up in a Māori speaking home and I’m far from a te reo expert. What I am is a good learner of language. I create these songs to help myself and others learn te reo. With short, repeated simple phrases and words and the English translation already within the song, I can help listeners (children, teachers, parents) to say/sing and understand the Māori words. Research shows that using the medium of song to help people learn te reo actually works.”
As a student of performing arts at Hagley Theatre Co in 1995, Jaqi began to be hired as a singing jester on bus trips. This led on to the development of stand-up comedy routines and a context to perform comedy songs. She has performed at iconic historical bars like Kitty O’Brien’s and The Temple in Auckland, Bath St Bar in Dunedin and the Wunderbar and Dux Lux in Christchurch alongside Rhys Darby, Guy Williams and Grant Lobban (Damo from Shortland Street). Since then, she has curated many stand-up comedy shows for HaHaHamilton comedians collective before creating her current comedy production company, Jaqi Taimana Comedy.
In 2025, Jaqi put together a five-piece all-woman blues band Piece of Cake which is gaining a nice following from playing at the Hamilton Blues Society and BOP Blues Club events.
Highlights of her stunning career to date include:
• Jaqi toured Germany in 1998 in a female acoustic duo, The Mona Lisas, with a collection of original folk/country/rock recordings. Her rock-style band Mothership was played regularly on Cry Music TV, and later her multi-cultural line-up Manu Taniwha was aired on TV2’s Ground Zero music show in 1999.
• Jaqi’s electronica/country song Buying Heaven was included on an NZ Music Month CD sent out free with The Christchurch Press in 2005. Five years later, Jaqi celebrated the production of a homemade compilation of her recordings over two decades, Crowning Jewels with a live show at Fat Eddie’s. Her final performance as a Christchurch resident was Lunchtime in The Square, Christchurch 2011.
• Following the earthquakes, Jaqi moved to Southland and won the Female Solo section of the 2011 Glen Country Music Club’s annual Talent quest. She played at Speight’s Alehouse and Waxy O’Shea’s Irish Bar and opened the Queens Park Waitangi Day concert in Invercargill. Like any true humanitarian Aquarius, Jaqi has performed to raise funds to help relief efforts in the Philippines and at the 2013 Relay For Life Cancer Society event.
• Jaqi performed an acoustic originals show at The Church in Dunedin as part of the 2011 Fringe Festival.
• In 2021 Jaqi moved to Kirikiriroa Hamilton and performed a family-friendly set at the Hamilton Garden Arts Festival and at the Turangawaewae Regatta before the Māori King. In June 2022 Jaqi & Jade kids music duo hit the stage for Matariki at Hamilton Lake Domain and at Puketepapa Manu Aute Kite Day atop Mt Roskill.
• In 2024 Jaqi completed a nationwide solo comedy tour with her musical comedy gem, The Coming 2nd, which was also included in the Wellington and Whangārei Fringe Festivals.
