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Mina & Maaka of Wai: Interview
by Jon Lusk. (January 2002)
Mina Ripia is the main voice of Wai. Maaka McGregor is her partner in music and life - he made the digital rhythms she sings to by sampling the sounds of poi, heart beats, body slaps etc. They came all the way from Aotearoa / New Zealand to attend the awards ceremony and feel honoured to have received nominations in two categories.
Q: Mina, you have sung in English with previous bands, but what does it mean to you to sing in Maori for Wai?
A: It's very important because it gives me a spiritual connection to my father, singing in the language of our ancestors. I get a spiritual connection every time. Being a student of the language as well, it means it'll strengthen my ability. The survival of the language is very important.
Q: How important is it that non-Maori people understand something about Maori culture from your music? Do you think this might mean singing in English in the future?
A: Maaka: It's really important people have the capacity to understand other people's cultures and languages. The hope is that they get taught that it's not a negative thing, it's not threatening ... when you say stand up for your rights, you're not telling other people to sit down. Singing in Maori doesn't mean we don't want to sing in English. But it's important to preach to the non-converted ... we need to speak to the 60% of young Maori kids who don¹t have a clue what we¹re singing about.
Q: Vocals are central to your music. Does this have something to do with the importance of oratory in traditional Maori culture?
A: Mina: Maori is a rhythmical language, so you could have no beats. I grew up on a marae [Maori community centre] so hearing my dad and grandfather start their mihi [greeting] with the words 'Tihei Maori ora' ('behold 'tis the breath of life') and stuff like that....yep, I did experience that and it has been a part of the whole journey.
Q: The other main ingredient is sampled poi (Maori percussion instrument) but how do you present your music live?
A: Maaka: What we do is totally different from what you¹d see at a Maori arts festival, where you¹ve got a group of 40-50 people on stage playing poi. When we play smaller venues it's a couple of singers and myself or backing tracks. Then it's all sampled and it's big and phat and loud and thumping... For a bigger event we'd have six dancers, three singers and three musicians. Mina and the singers actually play poi, and the way it flies through the air makes a lot of visual patterns.
Q: Do you feel comfortable being labelled as world music?
A: Maaka: At home we're called a Maori pop group, would you believe it? Other people label us electronica; we're not playing 'real' music. Then other people label us as world music. We let other people decide what they think we are. We just do what we do. If we please people, that's what makes us happy.
Q: What collaborations are you planning for your next album?
A: Mina: At WOMEX, we met people from the four corners of the world and we're wanting to join our two languages together [in each case] to create another one language ... so we're hoping to do some stuff with Hadji Mike from Cypress, and there's a hip hop group called Sudden Rush from Hawaii ... and there's Tarika, hopefully and Momo... We'll basically put as many collaborations on the album as we can, make peoples' jaws drop, take them out of their comfort listening zones perhaps.
Q: What do you say to people who claim fusion of this kind is 'killing' world music by diluting the roots?
A: Maaka: I think there should be room both for 'absolute roots' and for a mixing and a meeting of roots so that they grow into something else. By using the word 'root', you're saying it's something that grows, something that's always stretching out for life. I think the stronger your roots are, the more you're able to grow. If you don't have roots you don't grow, the tree falls over.
Mina: Well, I haven't really heard any negative korero [talk] about fusion. If they've got a problem I don't wanna know about it. That could be the title of my next song. And it would have to be in English so that person could understand it!
Read our Wai profile.
ÌýÌý//ÌýÌýRadio 3 Awards for World Music
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