Mayoral hopefuls get their Carpool Karaoke on

Whanganui's mayoral candidates have swapped political spiel for song in a locally produced version of Carpool Karaoke.

Kiri Wilson and Jay Rerekura from Yeah Hard at Nga Tai O Te Awa filmed the videos last week, using about 20 minutes of footage of each candidate and editing it into three-minute videos.

Carpool Karaoke is a regular segment on The Late Late Show with James Corden (weeknights at 7pm on DUKE) that sees Corden driving his celebrity guests, such as Adele and US first lady Michelle Obama, around Los Angeles while singing along to their music, or choice of music, and having a chat.

The team at Nga Tai O Te Awa has held meet-the-candidates forums during local body election campaigns in the past, but because the Chronicle was holding similar meetings this year, they wanted to do something different.

Each of the five mayoral candidates who participated in The Mayoral Ave Mish were asked the same questions, such as "Who would you take if you were stranded on Corliss Island?"

The pair gave kudos to Randhir Dahya for playing the bagpipes. They said William Osborne was the best singer, Helen Craig was the most fun and Andy Jarden was the most prepared, while Hamish McDouall was on point and surprised them by not choosing a David Bowie song but rapping along to Grandmaster Flash's The Message.

They were unable to contact Alan Taylor, and Ray Stevens was not available.

Mr Rerekura said: "We wanted to show a personal side ... to know the person, not just the politics."

Since posting the videos on Facebook on Friday, they've had heaps of positive feedback, with people stopping them on the street to say how much they had learnt about the candidates from watching the clips.

Yeah Hard is a social media campaign by Nga Tai O Te Awa, a Maori organisation focused on community action on youth and drugs, problem gambling and suicide prevention.

The videos can be viewed on Yeah Hard's Facebook page.