So generally I have reserved this blog for my two topics – explaining my work and giving love to those that have inspired me via my personal style journey. I need to take a break from this today just to post this video about my mate Sofles. He’s just THAT dude. I think once you watch this you will understand. There’s not many people that put 100% of themselves into this the way he does – he’s one of those people that continuously breathes new life into the game. I just want to say a big what’s up to him and the rest of the DTS family – You guys just make me feel so inadequate as an artist sometimes and that is what motivates me to keep striving to evolve. Thanks so much for the inspiration!
I apologise in advance for the roller coaster, which is this post. The reoccurring theme through this series has been how geographical isolation has played so intrinsically into the shaping of popular culture in New Zealand society – in particular our Hip Hop music and our graffiti style. Our determination to feel a sense of international ‘inclusion’ has been both a gift and a curse in many ways.
Thanks to Peter McClennan for digging out this image – I was searching for it for so long!
When I travel abroad, especially within the United States, it still startles me how many people assume New Zealand is part of Australia. Generally the conversation goes:
“This is Askew from New Zealand.”
“Oh you’re from New Zealand?”
“Yeah.”
”Oh man, I’ve always wanted to go out there to Australia.”
To which I usually reply:
“Well, if you do go to Australia, make the time to fly the extra 3-4 hours to my country – it’s worth it!”
Australians and Kiwis are all well aware of our differences – we are so much the same in so many ways that we have made a point of highlighting these things. I was thinking about a really simple and relevant way to illustrate these differences in character and this is what I came up with: When comparing Australia and New Zealand’s forays into Hip Hop music I think you get a really good sense of the traits of each country. Making some blanket generalisations here – a typical Australian track tends to be very ‘Australian-centric’, definitely quite irreverent and maybe even to the detriment of its appeal to overseas listeners. A New Zealand track tends to assimilate itself to an international or American standard – maybe it’s even hard for outside listeners to determine exactly where it’s from. Of course the danger of generalisations is there is always an exception to the rule but for the sake of illustrating this point – this works quite well in this case.
Like everything though, there are reasons and there are cycles within popular train of thought at any time. Right at the beginning of my ventures into Hip Hop and doing graffiti – I was lucky enough to witness the emergence of a very talented and influential group of local artists that really epitomised a staunchly ‘kiwi style’. Of course, they weren’t the very first to do that – there was the important and hugely iconic group ‘Upper Hutt Posse’ and their track ‘E Tu’ from 1988. In all honesty though, the groups that had the most impact on me were those that were most prolific around the time I started High School. Musically I’m referring to Dam Native (Which Bennet Pomana from Upper Hutt Posse was a member) and Urban Disturbance and graffiti wise I speak of DLT, Opto, Daniel Tippet, DAF crew and Tank WL.
Dam Native – Behold My Kool Style
Performing on a Red Bull Live Sessions – May 2008. Check the Oli Green lyric in there “Kicking up a storm like an 8-legged Van Damm”
My memory may not be 100 percent accurate with some dates but I’m pretty certain around early 1993 the posted up top first went up in Bungalow Bill’s shop window – in the form of a giant black and white poster that took up nearly the entire frame. It may be hard to fathom anything more local – more Maori than Upper Hutt Posse but this single image of Danny Haimona aka Hyper D from Dam Native just screamed at me at such an immense volume. I would go as far as saying that Danny was easily one of the most iconic and influential local artists of that era – in all regards, ranging from his swagger and sense of style, the manner in which he made music with the perfect balance of Maori attitude yet not in a way that put it in the realm of being easily pigeon-holed as just ‘cultural music’. He made straight up and down Hip Hop music with raw attitude and he influenced a whole generation of Maori youth that didn’t necessarily feel that their voice had validity within the genre. To me, Danny represented empowerment that stood the test of time. He could flip effortlessly between Te Reo and English, spoke in local terms and in real Maori slang with a natural accent. If I had to write a list of the most important names in NZ Hip Hop music history – he would undoubtedly stand near the top and I’m pretty confident few would contest that fact. For a good decade you could travel to the most rural places and hear people rapping in a style derivative of his – drawing on his ‘Ism’s’, like the title he coined to describe his style: Horified.
The first actual recording I heard of Danny wasn’t until a bit later – I think around 1994 when I managed to get my hands on the rough demo version of ‘Urban Disturbances’ 37 Degrees Latitude album from Oli Green’s younger brother Guy (He wasn’t supposed to have it and definitely wasn’t supposed to give copies to us but yeah, that’s what kids do!). I used to mop the floors at the Ponsonby Community Centre after school and I had the demo on repeat on my Walkman. The track was called ‘Relay’ and from the intro:
“Kia Ora Kotau – This D-A-M-N-A-T-I-V-E – The original Horified Hip Hop – About to ahh – Get wicked with UD…”
To the line:
“How do I know? Because I’m Maori to the bone bro.”
I may not be doing a good job conveying how awesome it was to me but as a die hard fan of Rap music – even a try-hard rapper myself it just felt powerful to hear such local voices. (Also check Hamish from Christchurch’s Beats And Pieces on the 3rd verse – killer)
From Ice TV 1995.
Urban Disturbance had started out as ‘Leaders Of Style’ and the group consisted of Oli Green, Zane Lowe and Rob Salmon. I remember seeing them for the first time on the TV3 show Yahoo around late 1992 and being really captivated. I think the reason they resonated with me was they were both really good and also because they were white boys. I hate to say it that way but it just made me feel like ‘Hey! I could do this!’. Not long after that they made the name change to Urban Disturbance and with that came their conscious decision to rep a very natural kiwi accent. Much like Dam Native, the way they did that was with a real sense of balance between what sounded good and international yet infused with plenty of local slang and references. Between UD and Dam Native, being Kiwi seemed so cool to me right then.
As I mentioned in one of the earlier posts, one of my closest friends at High School was Guy Davey-Heap who is Oli from Urban Disturbances younger brother. Guy was a popular kid at school, good at basketball, fashionable and had a way with the girls. A lot of our knowledge of music was drip fed from Oli – through Guy and to us. My entire music collection for the first two years of high school were literally cassette dubs of Oli’s CD’s – which Guy was well aware of as an important commodity. Guy was a hustler at heart and knew how to stall out on the key tapes in exchange for lunches from the tuck shop or maybe an item of clothing, a cap or pair of shoes. Of course, I never had much to offer fashion wise so I usually won him over with my enthusiasm for the music and our kindred ambition to be rappers ourselves.
From the point that I became a semi-regular fixture at Guys house, I started to come in contact with Oli on occasion. It’s funny to reflect back on that because I was so completely in awe of him and his friends – almost to the point where they were just so amazingly cool in my eyes. I think it’s a thing you do when you’re young and in my case, I was the oldest of my siblings, mainly raised by my mother and desperately lacking older male role models. I was so conscious of trying to be cool whenever Oli and his friends were about, I was cautious about what I said – any slight nervous slip would result in getting paid out some how. Usually though, my deliberate and awkward manner around them would always result in me saying something dumb – and then getting given flack.
These situations were likely the most forgettable of things for Oli but to me, any hint of info was like gold. I really formed most of my opinions about fashion, style, swagger etc from a combination of what I was told directly or what I would eavesdrop and hear. There were a few occasions where Oli actually lined us up and would literally school us on what was what. Where to get the best T-Shirts or where the best barbers were and even how to rock our jeans. Really funny stuff in hindsight but at the time this advice was heavy.
Something that Oli did – a lifestyle decision he most likely never stuck with but at the time it was something I viewed as really courageous – was when he went completely drug and alcohol free. Amongst my group of friends, the culture we had around our use of substances was really strong, the idea of giving that up was far-fetched to us in the least. I just remember being really impressed by that, I honestly felt that was the most righteous thing anyone I knew did. Drugs and alcohol represented a sense of rebellion to us but then because of him it seemed like being drug free was even more rebellious in some crazy way.
By the end of High school I was definitely at a cross roads as far as my personal direction in life. To add to that, many of my friends were really drug and alcohol affected – to the point where some were fighting for their sanity. I don’t want to mention specific names, the people that know – know but some of my closest friends were really battling and hardly resembling their old selves. It’s the hardest thing when you feel so conflicted between being a good loyal friend to someone and also seeing how their own behaviours are isolating them more and more from everyone around them. Over time the old crowd really drifted apart.
In 1996 I had a string of incidents that really changed me completely – I was thrown down three short flights of stairs at a gathering one night, dragged up a driveway and beaten really severely. I had two much older guys kicking my head from either side. I woke up looking like the Elephant Man, my head was swollen out like Frankenstein’s Monster. I walked around with a big chip on my shoulder for months on end. It was really a combination of bruised pride and fear. I started to act out my aggressions whenever I was drunk – one night I came very close to hurting someone very badly and it served as the first of many wake up calls. Once again, it’s not something I can talk the specifics of but it was honestly such an ugly incident that I’m not proud of.
The conflict that existed within me was I was not particularly tough, not an aspiring gangsta like kids I knew, I feel I was well-raised and from a happy home environment. My interests were art, music, performance – not really pursuits synonymous with the type of negative behaviours I was starting to develop.
The last time I drank alcohol was in January 1997. It was the morning after a night actually worthy of it’s own novel. I woke up covered in piss, shit, blood and dirt with around $400 in loose money in my right pocket. My friends had found me lying in mud on Williamson Ave in Grey Lynn at 5am, crying with an empty 40. The day after was filled with reports of my out of control behaviour, random sightings around the city – some so embarrassing I honestly just wanted to die.
I swore from that day that I would never drink again. Of course it was a really powerful decision to make – one that also proved very isolating and lonely at times. It’s completely irrelevant to me wether Oli stuck with his non-drinking but the fact that someone that I admired and looked up to a lot did that proved enough inspiration for me to do the same – and over time, this choice has genuinely been one of the most defining decisions of my life. What being substance free represents to me is the clarity and focus I’ve needed to push forward with my creative pursuits. It showed me for the first time that I was a person that could make bold choices and stick with them. I don’t like to preach to people about what they should and shouldn’t do but for me this could have been the single most pivotal and empowering choice of my lifetime. One that really helped me find my identity.
This is the first of my videos about my stay in Los Angeles with Rime and Revok. This is a wall we painted in Hollywood with LA based/Australian artists Dabs & Myla. These guys are doing some incredible paintings for an upcoming show – was totally blown away by their canvas work.Rime did this piece in memory of his friend Semz.
Additional camera duties were taken on by Jersey Joe aka the Coach aka Joseph-Style.
The music is Oddisee – Bloom off the “Odd Spring” album which is available for free download here.
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