Savage
Interview by Deyu Ntebya
Continued from Murder Dog vol 16 #1
Do you feel like having a strong and growing Rap and Hip-hop scene in
New Zealand is a positive thing?
Yes, Rap music is a very positive thing. Hip-hop is great medium through
which oppressed people or youth express themselves. When you see New
Zealand you think of a beautiful green country, 
peaceful and all that,
but like any other country in the world it has hoods and ghettos and
people having a hard life. And that’s the part that I grew up in—the
rough neighborhoods of South Auckland. A huge population of the people
living in that area are Polynesian people, you know, Samoans and Tongans.
They are hard neighborhoods to grow up in. Rap is a good outlet
for the people living in these areas. Rap itself came from similar situations.
We’ve kind of taken the American art form and made it relevant to us
and our people. One of our biggest mottos is that we’ll take what’s negative
and make into something positive. Like my independent record label, Dawn
Raid Ent. The “dawn raid” was something that actually happened in the
early 70’s, when the government tried to deport Pacific Islanders. They
would go do home raids early in the morning. Just snatch people out of
their houses and put them on a boat back to the islands. That was called
the dawn raids. When I started my record label that was something I wanted
people to remember and to hold strong and not let people get treated
like that again.
Why were Pacific Islanders immigrating to New Zealand?
The New Zealand government wanted Pacific Islanders to come and work
in New Zealand back in the 1960’s, doing the low pay and bad jobs that
they didn’t want to do themselves. They would actually come out to the
islands and offer jobs. So of course we came, mainly cause it’s hard
to make a lot of money living in Samoa or Tonga. A lot of people started
coming over to work. Then the government decided that there was too many
of us here or something, the economy was not as good as before so they
didn’t need us any more. That’s when they started trying to deport as
many of us as they could but the way they did it was really ruthless,
doing things like the dawn raids. By that time so many of us had our
life’s here, families, kids. Some people had lived in New Zealand all
of their lives. They would break into people’s houses 5 o’clock in the
morning and grab any man over the age of 18 and deport them and their
whole family back to the islands. It started to stir up a lot of political
problems. For many years now it’s been something that the government
isn’t very proud of.
A lot of those types of situations must have shaped the sound of Hip-hop
in New Zealand. What do you think is unique about the sound of New Zealand
Rap?
Well, here in New Zealand there’s this thing that‘s like a funding if
you are a musician. If you show that you’re making and putting music
out the government will fund you some money so you can keep doing it. Like
they would give money so you can make a video clip. They might give you
$7,000 for each video clip. When it comes to U.S. that might not be a
lot for a video clip, but here in New Zealand there are directors that
can make a video clip with $7,000 and make it look like there was a $100,000
put in to it. So we really utilize all of those tools available to us.
How does your heritage influence you musicwise?
Polynesians and Pacific Islanders, we are all very connected to each
other. All of the islanders, if they are from the Bay or if they’re from
LA and all of the Islanders in Hawaii, have heard of our music back in
New Zealand because we have a lot of support for islanders all over the
world. A lot of us have left the Islands, because it’s not an easy life,
but we are still strong together as people. I myself was born in New
Zealand, but my grandparents came out in the early 70’s and 60’s. There
are a lot of second and third generation Polynesians and Pacific Islanders
everywhere, people who have never been to the Islands but are still strongly
aware of their heritage. Pacific people are very close as a community,
and unfortunately a lot of us have ended up on the poverty side of the
countries we immigrated to. Just from moving from the Islands and the
typical Pacific Island life to a New Zealand life or to a life in the
United States, it’s all a different culture, a different ball game. It’s
easy to miss the ball. Out here in South Auckland we have almost three
thousand Pacific Islanders. It’s like the Pacific capitol of the world.
What I’m trying to do as an artist and a Samoan is to shed a bit of light
on my people. To motivate the youth and get them out there so they can
do something positive with their life.
Where does your name come from?
I actually came up with the name when I first started rhyming when I
was maybe 13, 14 years old. My last name is Savelio and a lot of people
would call me Sav for short. Just from there when I started rhyming and
the way I was rhyming people would say I sounded like a savage. So the
name's been around from way back then.
What do you look for in a producer when you’re making a song?
I did a track with Akon back in 2003. That was just as he was starting
to blow up. That was after “Swing”, which was actually my first single
as a solo artist, and that went platinum. This song we made after that
was called “Moonshine”. He also produced the beat on there as well. I’ve
also been working with the German producer Steven 'Sugar' Harning, French
Beats International from France, Beat Camp, Cold Camber, Akon, P-Money,
and Soul Messiah and Benny B from Akon’s camp. He was also the executive
producer for my album. I guess I come from an international point so
the producers I’m getting beats from are many different parts of the
world. There are a lot of other countries out there making Hip Hop music,
it’s not only in the U.S. The other thing about Hip Hop is that it’s
really a unifying force, like I would come out here and be hanging out
with the Bay Area rappers. And that’s the way it always should be. I
don’t agree with the idea of having beef with other rappers and all that
shit that comes up.
Have you been touring a lot out here?
The crowds out here really amaze me, especially on my first trip out
here. For so many people to be familiar with ‘Swing’ just kind of took
my breath away. We did a show in San Antonio that was for the radio station,
and there was more than 25,000 people there. Soon as I dropped the first
song the whole crowd just went crazy. That blew me away, to be in the
country where Rap came from and to move so many people.
Did you really start blowing up in the U.S. after your song was featured
in the blockbuster movie ‘Knocked Up’?
Yeah, that really did it for me as far as the U.S. market is concerned,
and when you get big in U.S. people all around the world start hearing
you. In the Southern Hemisphere—New Zealand, Australia, Indonesia and
the Pacific Islands—we’re huge out there. But this will put us on another
level. We’ve been doing this for a long time and it’s not always been
easy but we’ve come a long way. It’s been a long hard fulfilling journey.
And I’m still enjoying it.
