Scott Kara traces the history of a Kiwi classic which, after 26 years, has made it back ito the top 20.
When he left the navy in 1980, John Nyman got a job at the Patea freezing works.
Two years later, it closed down, leaving him and most of those who lived in the small south Taranaki town out of a job.
But then, in 1984, the seemingly dying town was singing and breakdancing its way back to life with hit single Poi E.
"We went from earning quite big money to nothing - and then `hello, we're back'," says Nyman, who was a member of the Patea Maori Club in the Poi E era and is the current club chairman.
"It lifted the whole community out of the doldrums. It just gave pride back to a lot of us and we felt we were someone again rather than nobody - and that our town was something rather than nothing," he says.
In 1984 the song spent four weeks at No 1, and 22 weeks in total on the charts; it re-entered the charts last year after a Vodafone promotion; and last month, thanks to its use in Taika Waititi's film, Boy, it reappeared in the top 40 singles chart and has even jumped into the top 20.
It was written by one of Patea's favourite sons, the late Dalvanius Prime, and Ngati Porou songwriter Ngoi Pewhairangi, of Tokomaru Bay, on the East Coast.
Around the time many of Patea's unemployed had left town to take up spots on government work schemes around the country - doing everything from growing kumara to arts programmes - Prime was touring New Zealand with his band, The Fascinations.
While on tour on the East Coast with Prince Tui Teka, he went to meet Pewhairangi.
Or, as Prime, who died in October 2002, put it in a February 1988 interview with The New Zealand Herald, "she sent a message to me saying if I went past her house [without calling in] she'd kill me".
Although Pewhairangi had written E Ipo with Prince Tui Teka - a No 1 song in 1982 that Prime produced - Prime had never met her.
But when he did, they hit it off and he ended up staying with her for five or six weeks.
"We just kept writing songs together and comparing politics," he said. "I got ostracised by a lot of [my] people for working with someone from Ngati Porou. However, we had formed such a strong bond it was water off a duck's back to us."
He said she converted him from a "textbook Maori" into committing himself to learning the ways of his culture and reviving the use of te reo among his people.
Some of the main messages in the songs they wrote were about pride, self-esteem, and teaching young people good values, with the tiwaiwaka (fantail) imagery of Poi E symbolic of the erratic lives of young people.
Nyman also says Prime and Pewhairangi knew that to inspire young people to speak Maori, they would have to offer it to them in a format they could relate to.
"So the influence of the time was black American music and that breakdancing stuff," he says, laughing, of Poi E's fusion of kapa haka, hip-hop, electro and pop to make something unique, catchy and timeless.
"Bringing the styles together was all pretty new, and we had backing tapes too, which was very new back then. But once you get all the harmonies going with the music so it sounds like it's got a big orchestra behind it, you've got a winning combination. And that's what sold Poi E."
And it was just the hit Patea needed.
The shopkeepers and business people of the town helped Prime raise the money to record the song.
"We would travel up to Auckland by van in the weekends," Nyman remembers. "We'd go up Friday, bash the thing out all Saturday and damn near stay up all night because it costs so much to hire one of those studios, and then come back on Sunday. It was on a shoestring because we had no extra money."
And the club went on the road to promote the song, playing everywhere from high schools and woolsheds to lifestyle shows and shopping malls.
Poi E was a sleeper hit, taking more than 18 months to hit the top of the charts.
"Self-promotion was how we sold it and it just grew and grew. We were doing it on a budget.
"We would get changed behind hedges. We lived on sausages - boiled sausages, grilled sausages, curried sausages ..."
The other key promotional element was the video.
The Patea Maori Club were the main characters in the video, but there were other stars, including Prime driving by in the main street, a staunch little Maori fella (Nicky Old) pulling some fearsome faces in the crowd, and Jo the breakdancer.
"It was a bit of a laugh," Nyman says.
"We invited everyone in the town and they wanted to see everyone walking up the street; we acted as we normally do, but with a bit of showmanship. It was a buzz."
The video's director, Paul Carvell, who shot it for free over one day in Patea and another in Wellington, knew the song was going to be a hit.
"The opening bars with the Maori woman singing just grabs you, eh? And it still does, and it's 26 years old."
But, he says, because the song had not been released at the time of filming, he captured the club members and people of Patea "just doing their thing".
"There was no pretence to the video at all - it's underplayed if anything."
Taika Waititi, who kick-started a campaign on Twitter to get the song to No 1 during New Zealand Music Month, has shot a new video, which premiered on television this week and is available on the internet.
Waititi always had Poi E in mind for Boy.
And for the finale, where he pays homage to Michael Jackson by combining Thriller with Poi E, he was inspired by Japanese director Takeshi Kitano's film Zatoichi, which has a tap-dancing ending.
"They were all in traditional costume, but it's a Japanese tap dance. I'm attracted to that mix of two cultures and it was the same with the Thriller thing, because Michael Jackson was a huge influence on Maori culture, especially in the '80s.
"At parties all my friends and I used to try to mash up the Thriller dance with Maori moves, and I thought it would just be funny to stick those two together in the movie."
He says he first heard Poi E while growing up in Waihau Bay, where Boy is set.
"I probably heard about it long before I heard it. But when I did, I was hooked. Seeing Maori on TV was pretty rare, so it wasn't until I saw the music video that I realised how huge and amazing it was.
"It's the quintessential New Zealand song. I think it defines us and I'm so happy to see this true classic return through popular demand.
"Dalvanius would be very proud and, who knows, if this continues then The Patea Maori Club could get a new round of royalties."
"We're pretty proud back home that it's still out there," Nyman says.
"It's become iconic - they play it on the plane, and every time it's played at the rugby, everyone gets a buzz off that."
Lowdown
- What: Poi E by the Patea Maori Club.
- Written by: Dalvanius Prime and Ngoi Pewhairangi.
- Vital statistics: No 1 for four weeks in 1984; re-entered the top 40 on March 19, 2010; this week at No 19.
- Where to get it: Download from iTunes, Amplifier, Telecom or Vodafone websites; Buy Poi E the album at jayrem.co.nz
