Graduate Journal of Asia-Pacific Studies 2:1 (2004), 95-96
REVIEW

Ngatahi: Know the Links, Parts 1 and 2. Written and directed by Dean Hapeta. Aotearoa, Jayrem Records, 2003, 2 videodiscs (158 min.): sd., col.; 4 3/4 in., [videorecording].

‘I find myself in a world in which things do evil; a world in which I am summoned into battle; a world in which it is always a question of annihilation or triumph.’1

FRANTZ FANON’S world is akin to that which Dean Hapeta a.k.a. Te Kupu illuminates in the first two parts of his ‘rapumentary’, Ngatahi. Ngatahi is culmination of music, speech, writing and dancing all brought together under the auspice of hiphop as resistance. Warning: This is not an outing for MTV kids; it is an informative and challenging display of indigenous spirit across multiple locations. While unlikely (and not intended) to find financial or popular success Hapeta’s achievement has already been acknowledged by the powers that be; the film will take Hapeta to this years’ Sundance Film Festival. Answering Fanon’s problem Hapeta has created an unique fusion of multiple styles, themes and political projects that engages the viewer from the opening sequence to the closing credits.
There are four pillars of hip hop culture: Graffiti/Writing, BBoying/Break dancing, DJing and lastlyM.C. ing/Rapping. The unique reproduction of these pillars in Ngatahi is one of the DVD’s most notable aspects. In each location(Canada, England, France, Colombia, Hawaii, Cuba, the UnitedStates, Jamaica, Australia and Aotearoa 2) Hapeta uses a range of post-production techniques to reinterpret everyday street activity as hiphop resistance. Political speeches are underplayed by beats, graffiti is interspersed with more conventional writing and murals, and every form of movement from walking the street to surfing is displayed as if it was breakdancing.
This integration of hiphop with everyday practices is the reason why Hapeta can proudly call this a rapumentary. The merging of styles also allows the DVD to reinforce its assertion that the disenfranchised peoples in all these locations are faced with circumstances that are of the same making, and that only through resistance to these circumstances can progress be achieved.
Thematically, Ngatahi identifies the ways in which everyday and extraordinary aspects of indigenous/colonised peoples’ lives exemplify continued disenfranchisement. Disenfranchisement is represented by everything from place names(a-la Spike Lee), 'New Zealand? Where the hell is Old Zealand?’ through to law enforcement issues like those surrounding Amadou Diallo in the United States. At the sametime, however, Hapeta is keen to illustrate the agency of people over their own lives; they are not desperate or weak, they are strong and determined and always active in some form of resistance. This is best exemplified in the scenes from Paris where the North African youths, subjected to police brutality, are shown to display immense courage and character, from their stories of incidents with skinheads and
police to the activities of their underground radio station (hip hop styles of course).
The main strength of Ngatahi is its depiction of the similarities between the everyday circumstances of disenfranchised peoples in such diverse locations; however the DVD does not allow anything but brief glimpses at the more complex reasons for these everyday experiences. This is most significant in the stark contrast between the two sections on Colombia. The first section identifies that it is global processes directed by American foreign policy and multi nationals that have disenfranchised the entire population of the South American country. In part two, however, Hapeta focuses on the indigenous Indian population and the ways in which they have been disenfranchised in their own lands. The only mention of the colonisers are the Spaniards that arrived centuries ago not the Columbians that he was sympathising with in part one. This contradiction illustrates one of either two things: Hapeta is not fully aware of the history or he is manipulating it in a particular way to get his point across. The latter is almost certainly the case and in a way unfortunate; at other points he successfully melds together ideas that don’t necessarily present an obvious connection. The Columbian contradiction is symptomatic of what is problematic about Ngatahi. While Hapeta has brilliantly illustrated the disenfranchisement of indigenous peoples he does not investigate in any way the complex structural issues that have created and now maintain this disenfranchisement. To be fair to Hapeta, Ngatahi was never meant to be a history book, but it becomes clear, at certain points, that this is only a surface discussion, with much deeper and more complex issues lying below.
While it is easy to be thematically critical in this way, Ngatahi needs to be understood within its context; it is not a history (even of the present) so much as a
political statement. The themes and styles need to be considered as a holistic expression. Ngatahi translated means ‘together’, in this brilliant DVD Dean Hapeta has brought together the circumstances of disenfranchisement and the style of hip hop, to put forward a coherent political statement. Ngatahi embraces all four pillars of hip hop and rearticulates them through actions on screen, sometimes implicitly sometimes explicitly. Through the pillars, Ngatahi connects all the actions of different people to hip hop as a global resistance culture. The DVD naturalises the relationship between hip hop and resistance, i.e. all hip hop is resistance, all resistance is hip hop. Through selective editing of material and the privileging of certain voices over others this can be viewed alongside the artistic agitation pushed by the Situationist Internationale or the grassroots movements of the city of which Castells is so fond, or even the often mentioned Frantz Fanon. Ngatahi is a unique, hybrid, powerful and, most importantly, coherent form of expression. A true success.

Francis Leo COLLINS

University of Auckland

1 Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks, Macgibbon & Kee, London, 1968, p.168.
2 Aotearoa is an alternate (and the authors preferred) name for New Zealand, derived from the Maori language.

www.arts.auckland.ac.nz/gjaps