Celebrating NZ music throughout May: 8 – Rei / Dalvanius Prime / Maisey Rika and more

A bit of a mix of artists today, but all with the theme of Māori music.

Featured on the NZ Music Month website today:

Hip hop / R&B artist Rei, with Kia Tau from the 2018 EP Rangtira. On the Youtube for this song, Rei says:

'Kia Tau' roughly translates to 'just chill', 'relax' or be 'at ease'. I wrote this track about the stresses and obstacles that come with chasing your dreams. Ultimately though the song is about committing to your goals and not stressing out about all the external noise and distractions.

MuzicNetNZ says this about his 2017 album “A Place To Stand”:

If Rei is an example of upcoming Kiwi artists, the future looks bright. From creating music the last 10 years to present his multi genre sound, Rei is definitely on the cutting edge, and is influenced by our global music community. Mostly by the UK House/Garage style, by Hip hop from major US rappers but, his album has the extra elements of Māori language, haka and kiwi slang, making the sum of A Place to Stand a smoothly produced audio experience. It also sounds BIG in a stadium or club setting.

Here’s Deep from that album:

What else do I want to listen to today?

Yesterday, @kiwiscanfly featured the Patea Māori Club, with Poi-E from 1984. If you didn’t check that already, you must – a true kiwi classic. He mentioned Dalvanius Prime produced it, and I did a few shows with his nephew back in the day. In NZ, 6 degrees of separation is more like 2 or 3!

So anyway, I’m now in the mood for listening to some more Māori waiata. Let’s start with the Patea Maori Club again, with Dalvanius singing lead vocals on “Hei Konei Ra”.

Heres’s “Hine Ngākau” peformed by St Joseph's Māori Girls' College, in 2012

Not all our waiata are traditional. There are modern artists keeping the language and culture and up to date. Next, we have “Wairua” by Maimoa Music:

a collective of 12 young emerging Māori artists with an aspiration to inspire future generations. Wairua is a song encouraging ones belief in their natural instinct or spirit, we call 'wairua'. At times of adversity and hardship, it's that very natural instinct that will direct you. It's by trusting in that 'wairua' you will reach your full potential, so let your 'wairua' soar...

You may remember Maisey Rika from the video of the opening of the Arts Festival. Here she is with “Tangaroa Whakamautai” from the album “Whitiora”

Here’s Stan Walker, Ria Hall, Troy Kingi and Maisey Rika performing Aotearoa for Māori Language Week 2014 (Aotearoa is the Māori for New Zealand, and means “Land of the Long White Cloud)

About a year ago, I did a post with some more Māori music, so if you want more, go check it out for Now Is The Hour (the Māori Farewell) // Pokarekare ana // and Sir Howard Morrison, with Whakaaria Mai, a bilingual version of How Great Thou Art.

Thanks for listening

Videos from Youtube. Top image is the official logo and appears everywhere. This copy came from Eventfinda.

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