A hip-hop foreign affair

It's a big hip-hop world out there and DJ-producer DLT
knows it - he has a lot of it on his latest album. AIDAN RASMUSSEN reports.

An unassuming Darryl Thomson eases himself out of the passenger side of his media manager's car. From under the brim of his red label-less cap, the Maori hip-hop producer and DJ, better known as DLT, offers me his densely tattooed right hand, shakes mine firmly, then strolls into the building occupied by his multinational record company.

We make our way to a black leather couch in his employer's playroom. A bigger-than-big-screen TV fills most of one end of the room while a lonely pool table occupies half of the other. The elder statesman of New Zealand hip-hop - he was a founding member of New Zealand's first hip-hop outfit, Upper Hutt Posse - is bleary-eyed and looks as if he's been up all night. Which is not surprising considering last night was the launch of his new album, Altruism.

It's his first album since 1996's moderately successful The True School which featured the vocally gifted Che Fu on the number one single Chains, which eventually achieved multi-platinum status and earned DLT the Best Single Award at the 1997 New Zealand Music Awards.

The 34-year-old father of two is alert and characteristically talkative, but mellow.

For a man who has accused the music industry of being run by paedophiles (he may have a point considering Britney et al) and one who usually has no problems airing his political views that run counter to much of white middle-class New Zealand, he's remarkably mum.

He's also not about to lambast the music industry for not showing enough interest in, or support for, Maori and Polynesian musicians. Then suddenly he seems lost in some unsavoury memory. His eyes begin to moisten. "I don't want to focus on the negative. I want to focus on the positive," he says, wiping his eyes with a beautifully tattooed left forearm.

The former carpenter who grew up in Napier South, one of the many housing projects for the have-nots, is more concerned with imparting a positive message through his music to young Maori and Polynesians today, rather than rocking the foundations of the Pakeha-dominated hierarchy he's grown up in.

He hasn't gone soft, he's just trying to change things in a different way: "If you want people to listen to you, then speak to them, not at them, not about them and not over them," he says matter-of-factly.

It was this attitude that attracted the impressive list of international MCs (vocalists) to write and sing on Altruism. He wrote a letter to each of them outlining his ethos.

"Basically, I said we have a lot of young people who are being marketed towards negativity. And I just asked around some of my faves whether they would be willing to do something to the opposite effect. That got a good response.

"And basically I said there's a reference down at the video shop called Once Were Warriors if you want to see what I'm talking about."

"I don't know exactly what percentage of these 9 or 10 people from different countries went and rented the video, but a lot of them had already seen it. And that's why they knew that's what I was up to."

For his efforts, he managed to get contributions from Canada's number one-selling hip-hop act Rascalz, top-20 French outfit Saian Supa Crew and German vocalist Ono who has opened for likes of hip-hop heavyweights A Tribe Called Quest and Wu Tang Clan's Ol' Dirty Bastard. This is why it took so long for the album to be released.

"A lot of it was done by koha [donation]. Basically, all these guys said they'd do it for the love and do it in their spare time and when they could.

"It was pretty hard, but the proper way to do it. I did a lot of sitting round waiting and I didn't want to shift my energy away from what I was doing and focus fully on something else. My family went through a few hard times but no more than they were used to," he says.

That long wait may prove fruitful, as DLT has produced an intelligent, reggae-influenced hip-hop album that's equal to anything made by his peers overseas. After the disappointing sales for his debut, the originator of bFM's Trueschool Hip-Hop Show is hoping his United Nations-like array of MCs will help him achieve the sort of acclaimThe True School should have attained.

"I wanted a sound that would sell all over the world. I've done albums with the cream of the crop here, I don't do the same thing twice and I definitely don't go backwards. You've got to take that step forward. It's a combination of that, and also the disappointment of not selling 10 trillion albums for The True School."

You get the feeling that his personal success will always run a far second to his desire to be a good role-model and to contribute in a positive and lasting way to today's and tomorrow's generations.

DLT considers his MC contributions as gifts. He leads a team of graffiti artists who help rid the city of tagging in his spare time and he respects and reveres his ancestors to the point of worship. His tattoo pays homage to his late and influential grandmother.

His body is covered in colour, history and meaning and records various branches of his whakapapa which are constant reminders of their contributions to his life. DLT is the last of a dying breed that walks the walk, has more than their own concerns at heart and cares about what they leave behind. It's by no mistake that his new album is called Altruism.

"I want to contribute to future generations, not in leaps and bounds but slowly add more and more to my children's children. That's the future to me. That's how you describe the future. They're not here yet but you know they're going to be."

* DLT plays on Saturday night at Dubarama with Rockers Hi Fi, Dex'n FX 2000, International Observer, DJs Dubhead, Cina, Slowdeck and Downtown Brown at the St James Theatre.