Up until now NZMV has primarily focused on brand new videos highlighting up and coming and established artists, directors and film makers. To keep things interesting we thought we’d take a hoon down memory lane and revisit some of our countries gems from the last few decades.
To start with I’d like to pick out something significant to NZ Music. E Tu by Wellington’s Upper Hutt Posse. Aotearoa’s first Hip Hop single!
‘Recorded in 1988 at Writhe Studios, the actual release of ‘E Tu’ came about as the result of Television New Zealand’s popular and alternative music program Radio with Pictures covering Aotearoa’s first ever MC battle, which was held in the Hutt Valley in 1987 with UHP serving as the house backing band. It was here that they caught the ear of local DJ, music manager and OG beat-maker George Hubbard.
“George Hubbard was hustling,” reflects Hapeta. “There was this thing called the Recording Artists Scheme. He said we should apply for that, so we applied for it and got five grand to record the single. Then we had to go and find a record company, and he goes ‘We’ll go to Jayrem [Records]’. We knew Jayrem because they were doing Dread, Beat and Blood and that. [We] went out to Jayrem, sat down with Jim and he went, ‘Yep, I’m into it’. [So] Jayrem got on board, and it was probably George Hubbard [working] behind the scenes as well, because we got Radio with Pictures to do the video for ‘E Tu’. They approached us, and were like ‘You’ve got a song; we’ll do the music video’. We were like ‘Hell yeah’.”
Blending a simple militant style old school Hip Hop beat with rapped revolutionary rhetoric with an explicitly Ma¯ori frame of reference, ‘E Tu’ broadcast a clear, focused message to the people of our country and ushered in the real beginning of Hip Hop Aotearoa.
Twenty years on, Upper Hutt Posse have released five full length albums, numerous singles/videos, and performed around the globe, indelibly stamping their mark upon the history and development of modern music within our country and abroad.
Halfway along the journey, Hapeta (nowadays known more commonly as Te Kupu or D-Word) became a film maker and masterminded the critically acclaimed 6 part rapumentary series Ngatahi – Know the Links, which has seen him travel through twenty different countries to document arts and activism amongst native and marginalised people across the planet.’
