Maisey Rika's music inspired by prison visit

Maisey Rika has been inspired to write new material from her experience working with prison inmates.

Rika will feature alongside other New Zealand musicians, Anika Moa, Warren Maxwell and Ruia Aperahama, in a new television series Songs From The Inside to be shown on Maori Television. Last year they went into Rimutaka Prison and Arohata Prison - a women's prison - to teach songwriting to prisoners.

The Whakatane singer, whose affiliations are Te Arawa and Mataatua, said she was shaken, inspired and humbled by the experience.

"At the end of the day, they are going to be out among us and before that I'd rather they be around something positive rather than negative. That's what we're giving them - tools in music, tools in writing, tools in therapy. Write it out, don't lash out."

Rika said the experience was inspirational for her. "I wrote a song out of the experience."

She said she learnt much more from them than they probably did from her.

"Just appreciating the small things. At the end of the day, I can go home and tuck my boy in. Lots of them are mums with big whanau."

She said it was difficult getting close to the inmates. "The girls are a lot harder - they're more stand-offish, cautious and a lot more staunch. The men were more open."

She said after a while the barriers came down.

Rika paid tribute to her fellow artists and said Moa was an awesome teacher. "Our tane both Ruia and Warren were great, too."

What was produced was amazing and Rika said the inmates were able to convey "their own thoughts and own feelings".

"What was produced was honest and raw with real truth - it was real music."

She was not sure if there would be a further series but she said she would gladly do it again.

Songs From The Inside is described as a gritty and thought-provoking series and will premier on Sunday, March 18, at 8pm on Maori Television.

Director Julian Arahanga, who gained fame as Nig Heke in Once Were Warriors said the series covered the 10 weeks that the musicians taught 10 prisoners the step-by-step music programme developed by Hamilton music teacher Evan Rhys Davies. This was a pilot programme he had tutored at Spring Hill Corrections Facility in Waikato.

"Each episode reveals a little more of the human story behind the prison statistic, ending in a 13-hour-long special in which the songs the prisoners wrote, sang and recorded will be revealed."

He said it was crucial that Songs From The Insidewas as real as its uncompromising surroundings. Once inside the prisons, the cameras rolled.

"We knew we would face barriers," he said. "But none of us could have predicted what would emerge when those walls finally came down."