Perēri King is grateful to the Hawke's Bay community for their support. Photo / Warren Buckland
Perēri King is grateful to the Hawke's Bay community for their support. Photo / Warren Buckland
Hawke's Bay music teacher Perēri King never really wanted five minutes of fame, and you could argue it's only knocked on his door by mistake.
But that would be to ignore just how much the soulful voice of the Hawke's Bay music teacher and story-teller carried him to victory inthe inaugural 5 Minutes of Fame competition on Māori Television.
King, who was born in Te Whanganui a Orotu and grew up in Maraenui and Clive, won the competition last week, after 12 weeks, and 46 acts.
The competition was held at the Ray Friedman Art Centre at Auckland Girls' Grammar School.
He said he didn't know it was a competition when he first signed up.
"Once I realised, it was too late. Then I made a conscious decision to challenge myself to do better."
On his Facebook page King told his nearly 12,000 followers: "I didn't want to do the whole competition thing. I thought it was a one-off gig for Māori TV - typical me - never read the brief lol. Now, I am here, competing. And it feels like the community - Maraenui, Flaxmere, Nuhaka, Tangoio, Te Haroto - is with me...and for that, I acknowledge the communities that hold me up."
Perēri King is grateful to the Hawke's Bay community for their support. Photo / Warren Buckland
Before arriving in Auckland for the competition, each contestant was given an opportunity to choose a preferred song and three substitute songs in case those songs were already being performed by others.
"As the competition got to the finals we were asked to pick a song from the list that the band had chosen for us and the second song in the finals was a song that we had previously sung in preliminary rounds," he said.
"I sung Never Too Much by Luther Vandross for my band list song, then No Woman No Cry for my repeated song and we all had to learn the song Torea - a waiata composed by one of the judges, Pere Wihongi."
His niece Madison was there to cheer him on, as she lives in Auckland.
"She's my brother's daughter and it was awesome having whanau there," he said.
"Also a few of my whanau from Omahu were there to cheer me on not to mention the new family I made in the contestants.
"Thank you to the community of Hawke's Bay for all the love and support."
Four contestants from Hawke's Bay made the finals along with King- Makayla Maini-Purcell, Mahinarangi Lawrence and Talitha Blake, all from Ngāti Kahungunu iwi.
