Bullseye with Jesse Thorn is a production of MaximumFun.org and is distributed by NPR.

I'm Jesse Thorn, it's Bullseye.

If you listen to Bullseye for a while, you know this already, but every guest that we have

on our show has made work that I personally care about and admire. Sometimes you've heard

of them already, sometimes you haven't. I'm guessing that my next guest probably falls

in to the latter category. So, you hear me out. He's a guy from New Zealand. His name

is Tom Scott. He's in his 30s, lives in Auckland. He has a kid. He's been working in hip

hop for about a decade. He's one of the most important figures in New Zealand hip hop,

but financially that doesn't mean a ton. Last year he put out an album under the name

Avondale Bowling Club. And it was, to be honest, stunning.

It's a hip hop record with jazz instrumentation. Real jazz, not just foreign eight bar loops of

jazz records. Pushing forward in the territory that Kendrick Lamar staked out with the

Tupimpa Butterfly. It's also an incredibly personal album. He named it after the suburb

of Auckland where he grew up. It's where he lives now too. Scott wraps about his childhood,

the places he's been, the people he doesn't see anymore, his family. It's one of my favorite

records of the last year. I think you'll really like it too. Let's take a listen to a song

of Avondale Bowling Club. This one is called Old Dogs.

Tom Scott, welcome to Bullseye. It's great to have you on the show. Thanks for having me,

both. I appreciate it. I was thinking that this record feels like it is kind of about growing up.

You're well into your 30s at this point. Were you not a grown up before? I'm not a grown up as

those. I'm still growing. I felt like there was some kind of, you have to take checkpoints.

You know, someone tweeted the other day every time you look in a mirror is a checkpoint. So

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