Murder Dog Archives


	*Interview with DLT* By Black Dog Bone From what I've heard, you are one of the pioneer rappers in New Zealand. How did you first get into Rap music? When I was a young kid, cause we're Brown folk and we live in New Zealand, and New Zealand is basically run by White English people, they tell us how to live. They put us in ghettos and they show us television and they offer us the Waltons and the Brady Bunch and all this fuckin White shit. The first thing we see that has non Whites in it is martial arts and blaxploitation. In history, through the media of television my people had to choose something that we could relate to. We're not allowed to practice our own cultures in our own country, we have to assimilate with what they give us. We chose Funk and Reggae and sports. This was in the late seventies, goin to the disco on Friday nights and meetin up with all the other Brown folks and sharin the same rhythm. By the time Hip Hop hit our shores we were already there. The Brown people in New Zealand related to the Black people in the US? Is your situation similar or different? It's similar in the sense that there is an outside influence tellin us that our ancestors were wrong and didn't exist. But what's different for us from Black Americans is we are from this land and they came to our land and told us to change. They did not take us away. We don't have a dream of where we come from. We are standin on our own land and we are not allowed to be here. You're Maori? I'm half Maori and half European decent. But in New Zealand, you might as well be Black. If you ain't White then you don't count. You say you can't practice your culture. The Brown kids basically grow up like Europeans? They speak and dress like Europeans, but their hearts will never change. Do you believe the Maori people will eventually embrace their culture? Yes I absolutely do. As a Polynesian child from day one you are taught that you are walking on your "mother", she's not real estate, so we do not abuse the "mother". We do not over-fish, we do not cut down the forest, we do none of that. She allows us to live on her, why take away your source of life? As far as your lyrics, you probably talk about these issues? Absolutely my man. My people make up 16% of the population, and we make up at least 50% of the people incarcerated. From New Zealand we see the mirror reflecting from our brothers and sisters in America. The only thing that separates us from the Black people in America is that we are stuck in our land. But we assimilated in JJ Jackson and Soul Train. Reggae is the biggest music in Polynesia. Bob Marley makes Elvis look like a bitch. When did you start listening to Rap? I got into Rap music when I first heard "Planet Rock" in 1982, I think it was. It goes back further than that before it was even called Hip Hop--Curtis Mayfield and James Brown. Michael Jackson had a big influence on us because he was probably the first Black artist we saw on TV who was bein unadulteratedly funky. He was real. He helped me get through the seventies. When Africa Bambaata and them came out in the early eighties it just took us to the next level. It's been a long ride. I was in the first Hip Hop group in this country to record in rhyme, that was in 1987. What was the name of the group? The group was called The Upper Hutt Posse. We were a big bunch of homies that got sick of hearing bullshit on the radio. We were learning about the science of Hip Hop and we wanted to use the music to help us from spending the time of our youth around bein violent, ignorant and incarcerated. Honestly we have the highest teenage girl pregnancy rate in the Western hemisphere. We have the highest teenage suicide rate in the Western world. We're one of the youngest countries on earth. Why is the suicide rate and the pregnancy rate so high? Because we are not allowed to exist in our own reality. Everything my parents and grandparents taught me about being proud of my ancestry is laughed at and made a mockery of. We live in paradise--lovely sunny days, fresh water, ocean all around us--a wonderful place, and they make us live like we're in East LA. It is the government's way of keepin us hopeless. First they have to hold us from independent thinking. Then they have to house us and feed us if they don't give us opportunities to live. That's what the jails are, hotels for my people. A lot of my friends have committed suicide over the disappointment of realizing they are slaves. The suicides are men or women? Boys. Like 11 to 20 years old. That's why Maori Hip Hop is very political. 90% of Maori Rap will rap in their native language. The first Rap song we wrote was about the language. What happened to Upper Hutt Posse? You broke up? No, we expanded. We were a group of 7 performers, I was a DJ. The band stayed on, and other members, we split up and started new crews with it. We designed it as a virus against cheesy Rock & Roll bullshit. To politicize the neighborhood about everything from health to injustice to true science, love. The Upper Hutt Posse, we were together for ten years. We all moved onto individual projects--production, television, radio. What do you do now? At the moment I am running a record label for the radio station. Auckland City, where we live has more radio stations per capita than anywhere else on earth. The radio wars here are the highest powered wars on the radio. The highest rating radio station is a Maori radio station, because they embrace R & B and Hip Hop and all the other stations here are racist. The managers of the station and myself, we meet and talk about the state of Polynesian business and music and we devise a plan to promote what we feel is positive for our people. We quietly slip a few images our and replace them with images from our ancestry. It's a long slow process and there will be no financial rewards. What we are doing is breeding the new leaders. As we all know, it can't go on like this much longer. Hip Hop is growing rapidly in New Zealand. I would like to say that, but the reality is that we can barely afford to eat and pay the rent. We do not participate in the consuming of American goods. If anything, we dub it, we steal it, we imitate it. It doesn't matter how you get it, the thing is that you embrace it. Absolutely. When I first heard "The Message" by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, it took me weeks to get over it. It was the same realization that the colonizers and their religions have done a lot of damage to the people. Are there any strong political movements in New Zealand? Yes there is. The Maori people are very busy. Contrary to all propaganda and media, Maori people do spend a lot of time trying to cover the tracks, so to speak, of the ignorant. As it is Maori people are not included, you're not there, you're not in the history books, you're a jerk. Second class citizens in your own land…. Yeah. Here's a couple of examples: a great ancestor of all Polynesians, his name was Maui Tiki Tiki Atarin. This man fished of the land we live on, he invented rope planting, he invented the art of tattooing, he invented the dog, he invented the shark, he done everything. He is called "mythology" in New Zealand history books, and this man named Captain Cook who came here in the 1700's is called "the discoverer of New Zealand." Another example: all through primary school, intermediate and college, they taught me that my ancestors were cannibal nut-cases who attacked White people when they arrived here. The real history is in fact the opposite. My ancestors were very similar to the Hawaiians, the Tahitians, Samoan, Tongans, the whole lot--very loving, caring people. The first missionaries came and did not respect how my ancestors lived, so they got belted. The White Europeans have never forgiven us for their forefathers' miscommunications. Somehow, we're always wrong. Just like the Indians. We're a mirror. Same with the Philippines, same with the Mayans, same with us. Hip Hop united the history, the true history. I went to college right to the end and was told nothing but lies. Through the words of KRS-One and the like, I rediscovered world history. Are people like Malcolm X popular among the Polynesian people? I have a tattoo of Malcolm X on my arm. Malcolm is a hero to me. I've read every book written about the man. It's good to talk to you. You're a person who embraced this music, but you took it beyond the music. My ancestors introduced me to Hip Hop and I love them for it. I hope a relationship can develop between the African people in America and the Maori people. I'm fascinated by the Aborigine culture in Australia. In Maori history they are our brothers directly, the Aborigine people of Australia. Because once upon a time our land was attached to their land. So they're our brothers and sisters. The most amazing people on earth. They're very similar to people from Tibet. Maoria people are very much the same. Do you see a change happening or you don't? I see two changes. I see the spiritual change, the awareness. There's more of an option in this time, because there's more people. I also see a lot of trouble because of the digitizing of the world by insane beasts who have held it for so long. As much as it's a good thing that we can get on the digital global highway and communicate with one another, that so are they. And we are still the minority. The problem with the global highway is it's not your or I that's being represented there, it's someone trying to sell you a product or an idea… What I want to teach the young people now is how to read between the lines. When Hip Hop becomes metaphysical, like how people like KRS- One are doing it, then they will know. As long as we're waving our hands in the air with knives and guns, without knowledge we're fucked.
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