A Kaitaia teenager is in the running to be named Aotearoa's karaoke king after crooning his way into the grand final of a national television competition. Whatitiri Te Wake blitzed the field in the first semifinals of Maori Television's karaoke show, Homai Te Pakipaki, on Friday night. The 19-year-old, originally from Panguruand of Te Rarawa descent, raked in the public text votes with his rendition of Dave Dobbyn's You Oughta Be In Love. The fluent Maori speaker has a youth radio show on Te Reo Irirangi o Te Hiku o Te Ika and first sang on Homai Te Pakipaki in May, winning his heat and $1000, and the chance to come back for the semifinals. Since his performance, fans of the show had been stopping him in the street to tell him they'd given him their text votes. "I'd walk down the street and everyone was like, `You owe me $50`. They were friends, whanau, and probably people who just like me," he said. The experience had been a big boost to his confidence. He had started singing in a band, and was booked to sing at the International Indigenous Business Leaders Conference at Waitangi on September 27. He has also been approached by organisers of the annual Ngapuhi Festival in Kaikohe. The grand final of Homai Te Pakipaki will be held on September 26 at the Beaumont Centre in Auckland in front of a 3000-strong crowd. The winner takes home $10,000. Among the confirmed finalists joining Whatitiri so far is Letitia Hayter, a student now living in Papatoetoe but originally from Motukaraka in Hokianga.
