Rei on te reo in music & Waiata Anthems Week
Waiata Anthems Week kicks off on 5 September 2022 and we thought the best way to start the celebration would be to have a conversation with Rei - an award-winning, multi-genre artist who has millions of streams under his belt and has been championing te reo Māori in music for many years.
Kia ora e hoa! We are so excited for Waiata Anthems Week 2022 which will see over 20 of the finest artists in Aotearoa releasing brand new waiata reo Māori! Why do you believe it's important for NZ artists to support this incredible kaupapa?
Tēnā koe! I'm excited too! It's been cool as watching the groundswell of reo Māori music coming out lately, and seeing more and more artists find the confidence to release in te reo. It's important to me to make Māori music because it help keeps me connected to te ao Māori. If a language isn't sung then it definitely isn't spoken. So music is super important for reo revitalisation. I always try and put the translations of my reo Māori waiata online also. So people can read along and learn new kupu. I think this is super important, it opens it up to people and keeps it accessible. I even put subtitles on my music videos a lot of the time.
Reo Māori has always been a huge part of your music! How does te reo inspire you musically?
It's funny, I studied te reo Māori at Victoria Uni. I remember being looked down on for doing a BA, especially in Te Reo. You'd get the 'you're never gonna make any money with that degree' eyes all the time. But I've managed to make a pretty successful career with it so far! It's a great language to rap in, all the words end in vowels so it's got such a good flow. A lot of whaikōrero is also real rhythmic. There's a lot of repetition and natural flow to reciting whakapapa and tauparapara. So this influence kind of naturally comes out in my raps.
What can you tell us about your new waiata for Waiata Anthems Week this year?
It's called ‘Kokomea’, which means 'sunset glow'. I've been working hard on a full te reo 14 track album this year, it'll be coming out in October which I'm super excited for! I wanted to do one tune on the album with another tangata moana artist singing in their reo. Polynesian languages are so similar, and I really geek out at learning all our shared kupu. So I hit up my friend Olivia Foa'i and she was keen! She sings in Tokelauan, me in te reo, and the result is pretty bloody beautiful if I may say so myself There's even one line in the bridge where we sing a line together at the same time, me in te reo and in her in Tokelauan, and the languages are so similar that it just works!
Incredible - we can’t wait to hear ‘Kokomea’ and your new album! What are some of your favourite songs in te reo Māori?
‘Wera Matao’, ‘Rāpeti’, ‘Whakapapa’ ;)
Huia and Sean Richards - ‘Punakaiki’
Maisey Rika - ‘Hiwa I Te Rangi’
Swizl Jager - ‘Badminton’
What do you hope that Waiata Anthems Week and Te Wiki o te Reo Māori can do to help strengthen reo Māori?
The challenge now really is to take the energy of Waiata Anthems Week and Te Wiki o te Reo Māori and sustain it all year around. I want to see people releasing new original te reo Māori music all year, not just in 2 weeks of the year. It's awesome to have these specific times to highlight our reo, and it's real cool for community building vibes. A lot of people would never release te reo music if it wasn't for these initiatives. But yeah, the challenge is to move to the next step which is full on re-normalisation of te reo music. And we need industry wide support to make this possible, otherwise our reo Māori music won't reach it's full potential. We're getting there, ka whawhai tonu, ake ake ake!!
Waiata Anthems co-founder, Dame Hinewehi Mohi, has mentioned “Our hope is that, no matter where you are on your reo journey, you’ll feel empowered to become a champion of te reo Māori through waiata.” Where is the best place to start for people beginning their reo journey?
Learn a new waiata reo Māori from Waiata Anthems! It's a super fun way to expand your kupu and learn new sentence structures. Share it on your stories! Hashtag it #WaiataAnthems. Melody is also a great way to assist in memorising things. We've literally used songs our whole lives to learn things, e.g. ABC song, 'Mā is white, whero is red' etc. So using te reo songs to expand your reo knowledge is definitely useful! Other than that, go to a reo class. It's never too late to start. My 92 yr old Pākeha granny has just started a te reo class at her retirement village. I went in for a session a couple months back and it was very heart warming!
Lastly, can you teach me a phrase in reo Māori?
He pātai pai tēnā! Good question! I'm gonna teach you one of the lyrics from my tune Whakapapa. 'Aroha mai Karena' - Sorry Karen :)
KIA KAHA TE REO MĀORI - THANKS SO MUCH REI! MAKE SURE YOU KEEP UP WITH HIM ON INSTAGRAM, FACEBOOK, SPOTIFY OR APPLE MUSIC.
