''If I wanted to listen to stiff-necked fools, I'd turn on the nightly news.''
Dean Hapeta, the New Zealand hip-hop artist whose songs have more to do with political activism than the bling-bling posturing of various contemporaries, has never been shy of voicing an opinion.
''People have said before, 'Ah, he's an angry young man'. That has annoyed me. I guess some people might say I'm an angry old man. Others might say I've mellowed out,'' Hapeta (47) says from his Kapiti Coast home.
''I don't feel 47. When I was 18 I was having so much fun I thought I'd just stay that age. I used to look at older people and think, 'Man, you're boring'. There's no reason to be.''
Hapeta still stands proud of his music and his messages. However, these days he roams far beyond the minimal beat of E Tu, fusing his worldview with that of others by way of a long-running collection of ''rap-u-mentaries'', the final of which will screen at the Dunedin Fringe Festival on Thursday, March 21.
Ngatahi - Know The Links is a six-part series on street art and activism among native and marginalised people around the world. Part six, which was completed in 2011 and features interviews and footage from Budapest, Belgrade, Beijing, Rio De Janeiro and Sao Paulo, screens at Queens bar, 1 Queens Garden, at 7pm and will be followed by a question and answer session with Hapeta. (Upper Hutt Posse performs at the same venue the following night.)
Though Hapeta began his film series in 2000, its genesis occurred in 1990 when Upper Hutt Posse visited Detroit at the invitation of that city's chapel of the Nation of Islam.
''A friend who was a cameraman came along that time and two years later we completed a music documentary called Solidarity. That was the prototype.
''It allowed me to be both an observer and participant. I'm part of the whole process. I was just some guy with a camera and most people I spoke to had just met me. It was something I'd wanted to do for a long time. I wanted to connect with oppressed peoples around the world.''
As reviewer Francis Collins wrote in the 2004 Graduate Journal of Asia-Pacific Studies: ''Hapeta uses a range of post-production techniques to reinterpret everyday street activity as hip-hop 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 break-dancing.
''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.''
Hapeta has certainly covered a fair bit of the globe over the past decade or so, visiting no fewer than 22 countries, ranging from the United States and Canada to Cuba, Colombia and Brazil, from Europe to China, from Tanzania to Tahiti and various points in between. His film work has also travelled, an edited version of the first two series earning ''official selection'' at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival.
Though he paid for his first trip to the United States in 2000, Hapeta has received more than $50,000 from Creative New Zealand to film and complete the series, which is more than nine hours long. He says more than half of that funding has been spent on airfares.
''As long as I can get to a place I'll make it work. I don't need a cappuccino in the morning,'' Hapeta says, adding he would often only stay in a place for a few days.
''I showed up in some places with no contacts at all. I went to China and was on the plane thinking, 'What the hell am I doing?'. I hadn't made any contacts. But I also know that things happen once you are in a place.
''It is more difficult in countries where you don't speak the language. But in Beijing, I emailed people and let them know I was there and people responded ... by the end of the night I had met a guy who put me me in touch with some Chinese rappers.''
Hapeta says he sought out fellow activists because he wanted to share ideals.
''It's about getting a conversation going. Because I am asking people specific questions about society, democracy and capitalism etc, I'm going to get certain answers. I want to know what they have to say.''
Hapeta describes hip-hop as more than a musical genre. With four key areas of expression (graffiti/writing, break-dancing, DJ-ing and MC-ing or rapping), it's more a state of mind.
''I'm focusing on politically minded hip-hop. Wherever you go, there is `conscious' rap and then there is bulls ... rap, cartoon rap. There is always some rap star in a place. Well, I don't need to talk to that guy; I'd be wasting my time.
''If I can combine language from the street with some kind of music that I can get from that place, I then mix it together. I also try to find an academic or someone who can talk about the place and add that to it as well. Importantly, there is no narrator. That's what makes it a rap-u-mentary.''
Hapeta has long had a fascination with the moving image. It began to flourish in the early days of his hip-hop act Upper Hutt Posse, ''When we made the video for [1988 single] E Tu''.
Hapeta finished Ngatahi - Know The Links in 2011, the same year Upper Hutt Posse released Declaration of Resistance, its seventh album. Described as a ''Manifesto of socio-political consciousness,'' the album was three years in the making, meaning plenty of overlap between projects.
''I keep busy, you know,'' Hapeta says.
''I've got my home studio. It has been music and the rap-u-mentaries for the last 12 years. It has been full-on, but it has been great. They are things that are close to my heart.''
Upper Hutt Posse's line-up for its forthcoming Dunedin Fringe Festival gig will feature Hapeta's brother, Matt, a fellow founding member. Others to have come and gone from the pioneering rap group include Darryl Thompson (DLT), producer of 1996 single Chains (featuring Che Fu on vocals, it reached No 1 on the New Zealand singles chart) and Emma Paki, whose debut single System Virtue won best songwriter at the Rianz 1993 New Zealand Music Awards.
''Things have changed with the band,'' Hapeta reflects.
''Those people who know us from 1988 ... well, me and my brother are the only original members. We are the core members. It has been difficult to nail down who is Upper Hutt Posse because there have been so many changes.''
Hapeta no longer lives in Upper Hutt. Home is now Raumati Beach, north of Wellington, where he enjoys the company of family, including a 5-year old daughter who is showing musical promise.
''She has almost worked out how to play Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star on the piano.''
Yet this is a proud father who looks out the window and often doesn't like what he sees.
''Things need to change in this country - and around the world,'' he says.
''I look at racism, at globalisation, who's got things and who hasn't.
''My mother is Pakeha and my father is Maori. The whole half-caste thing ... I thought, 'Whatever - I'm going to be my own person'.
''I thought the white people sucked because they thought their way was the way it had to be. And I thought Maori people sucked because they weren't fighting hard enough.''
See him, hear him
As part of the Dunedin Fringe Festival, Dean Hapeta's Ngatahi: Know The Links (part six) screens at Queens bar, 1 Queens Garden, at 7pm on Thursday, March 21. It will be followed by a question and answer session with Hapeta. Upper Hutt Posse performs at the same venue the following night.
