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A Maori warrior claims new territory
by Kerry Buchanan, Unesco Courier, July-August 2000

"Nigger!" The biker's insult blindsided the eight-year-old boy, shattering his vision of both Maori and pakeha (white) society in Aotearoa, the original name of New Zealand. The verbal attack sharpened the boy's awareness of his society's colour lines. Afterwards, he couldn't stand the sight of his fellow Maori cast as the peaceful but subordinate native.

Nor could he look up to indigenous gangs in his working-class neighbourhood of Upper Hutt, outside the capital Wellington. Turning to white society, he felt oppression. So the boy began to look inward, to imagine a "new breed" -proud of his Maori past and committed to a radical break with the legacy of colonial domination.

Today, at the age of 34, Dean Hapeta will refer to himself as "one bad nigger" in reference to his hardcore politics as a rapper. Here lies Hapeta's strength and, for some, his weakness: the ability to weave Maori culture, language and political demands - from land and fishing rights to economic equality - within the style and context of black American hip-hop.

Hip hop music (also referred to as rap or rap music) is a style of popular music. It is made up of two main components: rapping (MC-ing) and DJ-ing (audio mixing and scratching). Along with breakdancing and graffiti (tagging), these are the four elements of hip hop, a cultural movement which began among African Americans and Latinos in New York City in the early 1970s. One form, gangsta rap, caused controversy over nihilistic, self-indulgent lyrics which promoted violence, promiscuity, drug use and hatred of women.

However Hapeta's rap is more "haka rap," a challenge to young Maori to stand up for their communal rights and fight exploitation, whether by capitalists or drug dealers. As Hapeta has matured, his perfomance has abandoned the adolescent imitation of Black American speech ("dem had many clues" has become "they had many clues") and his delivery has become more powerful, expressing his confident warrior strength.

Indeed Hapeta and his group Upper Hutt Posse (UHP) have influenced a generation of hip-hop bands and fans across the country. Before these "warriors" stormed the stage, Maori music was generally marginalised like an exotic trinket of the past used in the "ritual" of entertaining tourists.By rapping in their language and incorporating the sounds, values and history of their people, Hapeta and like-minded artists shatter stereotypes of what it means to be Maori.

Hapeta's political consciousness did not flow from the "cultural awakening" of the 1970s when the Maori middle-class rediscovered its roots. He followed the learning curve of the streets, his whakapapa ("the place where one belongs"). Tuned into the liberation music of Bob Marley, Jamaica's legendary reggae musician, the songs of resistance rang true in his disadvantaged neighbourhood, where police confrontations were a rite of passage.