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Te Kupu - Word Up! May 2000 - TEARAWAY Magazine - Tim Bollinger As Te Kupu, Dean Hapeta (aka Upper Hutt Posse's D Word) continues to chant down Babylon with his own brand of hip hop and reggae music. He's just released a solo album - two of them. One's in Maori, the other's in English. TEARAWAY asked him how he first got started... "At primary school I listened to Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson and whatever I could find on the radio. "When I was about fifteen. I started listening to people like Bob Marley, Third World, Linton Kwesi Johnson and Gil Scott Heron. "They were talking about things I'd felt for a long time, but I hadn't heard it anywhere." Music in his bones Hanging out on the streets of Upper Hutt in the mid 1980s, Dean and his brother Matiu (Wiya) hooked up with like-minds Darryl Thomson (DLT), Aaron Thompson (Blue Dread) and others. "We used to float around Upper Hutt, hang out in the parks and things like that, and we just decided to start doing some music. We were a bit tired of what everyone else had to say... We've got music in our bones," Dean said. Hip hop was starting to take off worldwide, but the New Zealand scene was restricted to local rap and breakdance competitions. No one had even thought of making a New Zealand rap record. "We started jamming at a place called The Pad, where Aaron was staying. It was pretty hard case back then. We used whatever was there - a bit of a drum kit, a bit of a guitar, a bit of a bass, kind-of some amps..." Winning beats Teremoana Rapley (later of the Moahunters and another successful TV host along with Bennet Pomana MC B-Ware) came in around 1987. "She was going to Heretaunga College. I was after a female vocalist, and DLT's girlfriend's sister knew her, so we said"tell her to come around". We were practising at Bennett's house. She sang a little bit and we said "oh thatās cool!ā" The Posse rapped and toasted over a mix of reggae and soul beats put out by live instruments, tech-tables and drum machines. Their big break came when they entered a rap competition in Taita, Wellington, in 1987. "We were a bit different because we said: "We're not going to rap over records. We're a band." The group was spotted by Wellington art patron and music entrepreneur George Hubbard who soon became their manager and got them a grant and a recording contract. Success followed. E Tu "We brought out our first single at the end of '88 - E Tu. And that was pretty much it really," Dean said. "Everyone watched Radio With Pictures back in those days and when that played we were known overnight." But Dean's provocative lyrics and outspoken political stand - unusual for the world of Kiwi pop - drew heat from the press. 1990 was 150 years since the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi and the Posse's songs didn't fit the clean, happy image that the country was trying to put across. |
That year Dean and some of his band members took a trip to the U.S. and spent time with members of the Nation of Islam in Detroit. "That's Malcolm X's group. They're well known for saying 'the white man's the devil' and I'd said 'whatever they say, I support them anyway' so that got up people's noses. "We did a gig at Selwyn College in Auckland, and the next day I read in the paper that we'd barred some white students from the gig. That was the first I heard about it, and it was on the front page! "I thought, this is ridiculous. We're not even at the door - how are we going to bar any white kids - So we sued the Auckland Star (INL) and had an out-of-court settlement four year's later. We proved our innocence, but it didn't get front page." Who's the racist? "Even when we went to Australia in 1990 I got attacked by a Jewish reporter, because of a lyric in a song Stormy Weather, which was a comment on the political weather of the world, saying that "Jews are now after Nazis, people are starving in Africa blah blah...". "Then we did a gig at the Gluepot and there were some Samoans in the crowd telling us "Go back to Wellington! You fellas gave your land away for blankets!" Someone in the band responded "Don't tell us to go home. We ARE home. You go home!" Suddenly WE were seen as the racists! We don't like white people, we don't like Jews, we don't like Samoans... "Over a year or so Upper Hutt Posse was in everybody's bad books." "It didn't bother me that much. I thought the group would be able to handle it. But it was a bit too much for everyone... "When they started calling Public Enemy 'racist' in the U.S. people started to look at us and call us 'racist too". "In the US, controversy sells records. But over here, record stores close down on you. " For me it was just a reflection of how people always felt about Upper Hutt Posse. They were always uncomfortable with us..." Fighting back It was the beginning of the end
for this lineup of the Posse. But, if he's learnt any lessons from the
experience, Dean Hapeta's not letting on. The new album, Ko Te Matakahi
Kupu - The Word That Penetrates, is as hard-hitting as anything the
Posse ever dropped. And he's still got plenty to say to the press... "For
me it all gets political pretty sudden and fast. If you' |