Hip-hop pioneers Upper Hutt Posse will be inducted into the New Zealand Music Hall of Fame at the music awards next month.
The group, which revolves around founding member Dean Hapeta, released Aotearoa's first original rap record, E Tū, in 1988. Staunchly political, the song is a rallying cry againstthe racial injustice Hapeta saw in New Zealand and a powerful call to arms for Māori pride.
Fiercely political from a young age, Hapeta recounts heated discussions with his mother while watching the nightly news, and says the group's iconic rap song was inspired by James Brown's Say it Loud, I'm Black and I'm Proud.
"When I heard that some years earlier I thought Māori people need a song like that. Upfront and in your face. It's modelled on that. You can see it," he says, before rapping E Tū's chorus down the phone, "E tū stand proud, Kia kaha, say it loud". "It's influenced by these other black struggles because that's what we're part of. Whether Māori people want to realise it or not."
Hapeta took influence from America's Black Panther movement and the words of Malcolm X. His views staunch and his politics never far from his rhymes.
"I was talking about Māori leaders, who were called terrorists and rebels, but who to us were freedom fighters," he says. "I did choose specifically the ones who fought violently because everyone in the Māori world says hold on to the peace, and I'm like, f*** peace, why you want to sit around and suffer through shit?"
Before gaining fame - and controversy - as a hip-hop outfit Upper Hutt Posse started as a reggae group, mainly because Hapeta says they didn't have the drum machines needed to get the hip-hop sound he loved. With a background in breakdancing and love of graffiti culture, his influence lay in the futuristic-sounding electro style, like Afrika Bambaataa and Mantronix, rather than the American sample orientated sound of groups like Public Enemy.
However, once they got hold of Roland's iconic TR-808 drum machine it was all on.
"It was like yeah, we're coming out as rappers. No one else is gonna have a rap album out by this time. We're gonna be the first. But this is not just gonna be a rap song, it's gonna be a conscious rap song. From the get-go, I said the music's got to be conscious."
Hapeta says he wanted the group to be an inspiration for Māori, musically, politically and culturally.
"I do think we've inspired a lot of people in the sense of protesting against the wrong and being proud of who we are," he says. "But I have no doubts the group was marginalised because of political statements I've made. I positioned myself as someone who's going to speak out about the wrongs I see in this world. That's how I figured I'm of worth, I'm of value in this struggle."
Despite his strong views, Hapeta says he's not about to enter politics, although he has thought about it.
"Everything I do is political, but I can't see myself working in there," he says. "But then I get upset because there are idiots in there! Maybe I should get involved. I just can't see how I could make things better with the statements I make."
It's those political statements along with the group's booming beats, that will be the legacy of Upper Hutt Posse.
"I found that I had to be saying something that I'm ready to die for. That I'm prepared to kill for perhaps even. I'm going to be saying things that people are going to say, 'Oh, shut up' or 'You don't know what you're talking about'.
"But I thought, nah, f*** it, you heard me say it onstage. That's what I believe. If you want to fight about it let's do it now. I'm not backing down from statements I make or say onstage."
Then Hapeta chuckles and says, "No wonder we had a bit of controversy here and there through the years. But people had no idea that I'd been thinking like this for many years before Upper Hutt Posse."
"I'm really thankful that I've got music," he continues. "That I can express myself like that because otherwise.... look, I don't know what the hell I might be prepared to do with all of the racism that I still see in this country every day.
