Hip Hop Music in Aotearoa

Gareth Shute

Auckland: Reed Publishing (NZ) Ltd., 2004

Reviewed by Tony Mitchell

This chronological survey of 15 years of hip hop in Aotearoa/New Zealand won the 2005 Montana New Zealand book award in Lifestyle and Contemporary Culture, which may give some indication of the prominent role that hip hop culture plays across the Tasman. It is a comprehensive factual history of the subject from its first release, Upper Hutt Posse's 1988 single E Tu (Be Strong), up to 2003, much of it compiled verbatim from extensive interviews with the main practitioners of the scene. But it tends to chronicle the main events and profile the main protagonists without really delving into some of the more important issues which arise from it, such as the continuing widespread use of American accents, and the varying degrees of Maori and Pacific Island political engagement expressed by the different posses, MCs  and DJs, along with an increasing use of Maori language as well as Samoan (most notably by  another pioneering figure, Feelstyle, aka Koz, in his 2004 album based on the Samoan alphabet, Breaking it to Pieces).

Chapter Ten, 'Studying Hip Hop Music in Aotearoa', makes some attempt to bridge these gaps, but it is too little too late, although it does address misogyny and the paucity of female MCs, and it is good to see femcees such as Teremoana Rapley, Nemesis, Ladi 6 and Emcee Lucia getting attention, even if Coco Solid arrived on the scene too late for this book. There is little focus on breakdancing and graffiti, as one might expect from a book with 'Music' in its title, although more emphasis on the musical aspects of the genre would have been appreciated, even if the 1983 Maori language hit Poi E, which incorporated a hip hop bassline and breakdancing into a traditional  indigenous context, is duly acknowledged (p.13),.

In an interview with Linda Clarke on NZ National radio in November 2004, Upper Hutt Posse's lead MC Te Kupu (The Word, aka Dean Hapeta), who has been described by DJ P-Money as 'the most influential voice in hip hop in New Zealand', made the controversial statement 'If I didn't love music, I might have been a suicide bomber. I might have flown a plane into the Beehive' (the NZ House of Parliament in Wellington). On the surface this might be put down to the same kind of exaggerated hip hop braggadocio mixed with political anger and disgust which inform a track like Sydney crew the Herd's Burn Down the Parliament, but it also speaks from a long involvement in the politics of Maori  sovereignty which Hapeta and other Maori MCs have brought to hip hop in Aotearoa. This has often restricted its airplay to Maori iwi stations  and community radio, and given more prominence to blander, more commercial national examples of the genre such as Christchurch Samoan MC Scribe's 2003 chart-topping anthem of New Zealand hip hop, Stand Up, with its mild US idioms and inflections. Hapeta  argues that the very term 'New Zealand' is racist, and his celebrated 1995 track Whakakotahi (To Make One) begins 'Fuck New Zealand, ya call me a Kiwi, Aotearoa the name of this country.'  (I once tried to play this track when I was interviewed by the celebrated NZ talk show MC Kim Hill, but it didn't get past the language censors.)  Or more ironically, there are statements like that made by Mareko, of the South Auckland Polynesian hip hop collective Dawn Raid (named after a famous police raid in the 1970s on Pacific Island 'overstayers'), ' You'll probably take no notice of what I'm saying anyway because of my fake American accent'. Well, exactly, so why bother?

Shute tells us that Mareko's 2003 album White Sunday, named after a Samoan religious ceremony welcoming children, was partly recorded with key New York hip hop figures in the USA and cost $30,000 US, a huge sum for a local release, and Brotha D of Dawn Raid is quoted as saying 'It's a big project but we wanna see one of our crew right up there next to Eminem.' (p.152). Of course this was never going to happen, and it seems delusional, not to mention misguided, to think it might, given the widespread tendency of US hip hop audiences to ignore anything from outside the US, especially with so easily detectable 'fake US accents'. Nonetheless artists such as Scribe, Che Fu, King Kapisi, Mareko and Savage of Dawn Raid, who recently signed to Universal in Australia, are often the envy of many Australian hip hop artists for their ability to top the NZ charts and sign to major labels.

Shute, a music journalist and musician who has since published another book based on his experiences as a band member, rightly starts with another key pioneer of Aotearoa hip hop DLT (Darryl Thompson), whose 2000 album Altruism began with a Maori karakia (a call to prayers, and not a haka as Shute claims on page171), incorporated tracks from the French  Saian Supa Crew, along with Chilean and Canadian artists, and became something of an overlooked masterpiece.

A major irritation is the lack of an index, which severely restricts the book's use as a reference source, as does the lack of any discography. There are some historic photos, many of them taken by Shute himself, many of CD covers, and the final chapter on how to produce hip hop is instructive, while the attention given to long-standing South Auckland Polynesian producer and mentor Phil Fuemana, who died shortly after the book appeared, is fitting.

Music Forum Vol 12 No 2