Rapper and songwriter, Tipene Harmer, brings his passions for te ao Māori and te ao hiphop together in award-nominated song, Tūrangawaewae. Photo / Supplied
Rapper and songwriter, Tipene Harmer, brings his passions for te ao Māori and te ao hiphop together in award-nominated song, Tūrangawaewae. Photo / Supplied
Stephen Harmer, aka Tipene, is a Tūrangi-born, Flaxmere-raised rapper and a finalist for the APRA Silver Scroll songwriting award.
Tipene, of Ngāti Kahungunu, Ngāti Porou and Ngāti Kahu, made the top five with his hit Tūrangawaewae, in which he features alongside musicians Troy Kingi and Maisey Rika.
Thesong's lyrics celebrate Māori language and culture through exploring the concept of tūrangawaewae, which translates as the place one has the right to stand.
"My music writing is whakapapa and tīpuna driven," said Tipene. "I want to bring the two worlds that I exist in, te ao Māori and te ao hip hop, together through my music.
"Those are the two things that I am passionate about - making music and being Māori," he said.
When Tipene is not creating music he works as a kaiako (teacher) in Whitianga, specialising in te ao Māori (Māori worldview) studies.
"I work as a teacher for young rangatahi, teaching tikanga marae to around 20 kids between 16 and 18 years old. I remember asking them one day, 'who of you have been on a marae?' None of them had. I felt a bit mamae about that, them being Māori and not having been to a marae."
From this interaction, the seeds for his waiata Tūrangawaewae were planted alongside the vision for marae to be an accessible space for rangatahi Māori .
"The idea for the song started as a walk-through of marae protocol. To take students through marae kawa with no whakamā."
Hawke's Bay-raised rapper and songwriter, Tipene Harmer, is a finalist for the Silver Scroll songwriting award. Photo / Supplied
The song's music video revisits prominent places for the artists on the track. It features the marae ātea of Te Aute College and the beautiful maihi (ornamented barge boards) of St. Joseph's Māori Girls' College.
Flaxmere College is part of Tipene's tūrangawaewae, as he was a prefect of the school in 1999.
"My school life was a rollercoaster but my teachers saw something in me and gave me that role in my last year of school. I didn't want to do it, I thought it was only for nerds, but I took a chance. It was my first time in a leadership position and it had a big positive influence on my life," he said.
Despite his gift for music writing, which has been recognised in the Silver Scroll award, Tipene never studied music and doesn't know how to read sheet music.
"Being able to read music doesn't determine if can make good music or not," he said. "Music comes from the heart. You don't hear music, you feel it."
Hawke's Bay proved a common connection for the three artists, as Kingi is an old boy of Te Aute College and Rika is an old girl of St. Joseph's Māori Girls'.
"There used to be eight Māori boarding schools in Aotearoa, now there's only four. The song was a cool way to pump out support for our kura kaupapa Māori.
"Because they were old pupils of those schools, all the kids already knew them. Maisey's picture and Troy's were like shrines in the schools. It was a tuākana-tēina set up: Maisey and the girls made up the actions for the video and Troy showed the boys how to haka properly," he said.
It was also purposeful that the music video showcased young people.
"I wanted to send a message that the marae is for rangitahi, not just our pakeke. In the video you see marae filled with young people. Not just for certain age groups," he said.
Tipene is currently in lockdown with his whanau in Whitianga, an area that has influenced a track on his latest album Heritage Trail.
Heritage Trail will be released on September 4 and prior to lockdown had begun to tour Aotearoa.
Tipene hopes to continue with the tour post-lockdown and to end the tour with a final performance in Hastings in December.
