TE KAAHU – TE KAAHU O RANGI
(Theia Music Limited)
Reviewed by Tim Gruar.
Written and produced by the Ōtautahi-born (Waikato-Tainui, Ngaati Tiipaa) singer/songwriter Theia (AKA Em Walker) TE KAAHU is a new te reo Māori project featuring music, videos and later this month, a live performance to coincide with Aoteraoa’s first official Matariki Holiday. This album is an opportunity to shine a light brightly on the beauty and vulnerability in Māori music, so often overlooked in our mainstream media.
I can remember seeing the artist Theia as a fledgling on the big stage at Homegrown a few years back. She appeared on the scene along with the then current wave like Lorde and Broods. Record companies were keen to model her for a career in pop. She broke onto radio playlists with a number of chart ready bangers including her big hit ‘Roam’. But despite having the skills for an international pop career, I’m not sure that was really her passion. Her message was harder edged than the usual relationship fodder we get served up on commercial radio or tik tok and insta.
For instance, she teamed up with Kirikiriroa rap artist Vayne on ‘Creep’, calling out misogyny and casual sexism. It’s a theme in her work that’s been around for some time – check out Theia’s ‘99% Angel mixtape’ EP which also takes a swing at the patriarchy and at the music industry’s deep-seated sexism. There was also a concert with both Shayne Carter and Delaney Davidson for the Auckland Arts Festival, in which they each contributed their own waiata, including a performance of TE KAAHU’s ‘E Hine Ē’ which now appears on this album.
Walker’s work is highly regarded, having co-written with the likes of Mike Elizondo (Dr Dre, Eminem) and Guy Sebastian. She’s twice been a finalist in the International Song writing Competition. Two years ago she came third for her tune ‘Not Your Princess’, beating thousands of other entries. The same year she also took out second place in the Unsigned Only (Top 40/Pop) song writing competition. Now, Walker is a strong advocate for the revitalisation of te reo Māori. She also holds a double degree in Te Reo Rangatira and Māori and Indigenous Studies (University of Canterbury).
With Te Kaahu O Rangi, Walker pays tribute to her tūpuna wāhine, including her late great grandmother Mite Kukutai, a famed Tainui composer and her ‘kui’, grandmother, Rangirara, who passed away suddenly just over four years ago.
She celebrates the latter in ‘E Taku Huia Kaimanawa’, a truly moving waiata. It explores “the pain and grief of death”, explains Walker in press. “That desperate feeling of loneliness and wanting so badly for that person to return to you but knowing that you must let them go.” True, this is he waiata tangi, a song of lament, mourning. But in Maoridom, those who have returned to the stars are not lost. Death is part of life and tupuna remain with us in spirit, here, walking with us every day. The title means “My treasured one”. Walker has spoken of how she revered her grandmother, how she learned from her and how she continues to walk alongside her, even now. You could say that this song is a depiction of te hononga tangata. Translated it means a thread that connects us to one another, one that can never be broken even after one has passed to the other side. The song is not melancholy, though. Far from a funeral dirge, but it is nostalgic, almost a two-step, with hints of those community dance hall waltzes. It’s uplifting. It borrows from traditional waiata, as do all on this album, but still feels fresh because of the sprightly arrangements. The lines that best sum this up: “Tukuna atu koe kia rerea ki tua o te ārai noho ki te pō (I will release you to soar, beyond the veil to rest in the night)”. Such exquisite poetry. The full name of this project is ‘Te Kaahu O Rangi’, another reference to her beloved kui.
Her kui features several more times, including on track 3, ‘Rangirara’, described as a song of unending love, delivered through the waiata tradition kupu whakarite (metaphors), describing her the special nature of her personality and the meaning behind her name. You can hear Delaney Davidson’s lap steel guitar creating this gorgeous angelic resonance throughout and it truly lifts up the spirit of the song. There is a beautiful dedication enveloped in these lyrics that will make you cry: “Māku ngā whetū e āmene māu (I will gather the stars for you.) I wonder if that’s a Matariki reference?
In interviews Walker has said that when it came to writing, the music was influenced by waiata tawhito such as pao (two-lined epigrammatic songs), mōteatea (chanted poetry), and karanga (a call from the heart), and the popular music of the 1950s and 1960’s. This is music that her kui grew up with. If you are familiar with the songs written by Ruru Karaitiana and made famous by Pixie Williams like ‘Blue Smoke’, then this will certainly resonate.
Throughout the album there are constant themes of peace, harmony, settling and healing. Lyrics rely on metaphor, whakataukī, even pepeha. As poetry they can be personal or generic and are as individualistic as they are open. I really like they way she gifts these to us, to interpret and use as we wish.
The album opens with ‘Te Kaahu O Rangi’ (‘Rangi’s Hawk’ or ‘Hawk of the Heavens’). Walker imagines her tupuna wāhine, her kui, Rangirara, personified as a kaitiaki (guardian), taking form as a kaahu or hawk, soaring high above her ancestral lands in the Waikato. The hawk surveys everything and comments on their condition, offers advice for their wellbeing. The waiata’s inspiration comes from “Waikato taniwha rau, he piko he taniwha”, a Waikato proverb that talks of a hundred taniwha (chiefs/spiritual guardians), spread out down the river, waiting at every bend.
When I heard ’E Hine Ē’ I thought it was a simple waiata of respect. Look inwards and recognise your own beauty the lyrics tell me. In the song her kui is holding her, reassuringly, encouraging her: E hine ē / Tō rerehua nei / Ō makawe me he awa tere / Tangi ana koe / Haumārotoroto ki ō pāpāringa / Māku e tiaki (Oh girl / How beautiful you are / With hair like a river that swiftly flows When you cry / And tears like dew rest on your cheek / I will take care of you). But maybe it’s wider than just her kui, a waiata aroha takataapui about the love of one woman to another.
‘He Hiimene’ is something of a hymnal piece, reminding you of waiata sung during tangihanga or pōwhiri. Because of their colonial connections most hymns are of English or German origins, translated into te Reo. Walker decided to write her own, reversing the process, creating a piece that speaks of the comfort of older music and the nostalgia in that. This is a waltz, really. It feels a little cinematic, too. There are some such as “Hunaia au e ngō parirau” (Hide me under your wings) that were no doubt inspired by memories of singing alongside her kui as a little girl and time spent behind the pews longing for Sunday lunchtimes.
Track six: ‘Waikato’ is a dedication to where her kui was raised, on the banks of the Waikato river. It was her great kui, Mite Te Aho Karaka Kukutai (known as Nanny Mite) that was instrumental in speaking up, alongside tangata whenua to ensure the awa was protected and eventually became a legal entity in its own right. This waiata expertly weaves Nanny Mite’s whakaaro with her own tribal pepeha. She also imagines the kind of metaphors that may have embellished Nanny Mite’s korero about the awa, who they show the connection of her people and the ‘matriarchal force’ of the river – the giver of life, the one that feeds, cleanses, quenches, waters crops, carries waka, etc. For me, I can almost hear the sloshing of the waters in the beat of this ballad. It feels like this song could easily become a choir piece, bolstered by many voices, particularly in sections where there is a greater call and response. Instead, there is just one voice, layered over and over. Effective, but perhaps not as strong.
‘Pai Maarire’ means, in Walker’s interpretation, goodness and peace and was written in honour of Te Ua Haumēne, founder of the syncretic Māori religion founded in Taranaki, which flourished in the North Island from about 1863 to 1874. Pai Mārire incorporated both biblical and Māori spiritual elements, promising its followers ‘deliverance’ from ‘pākehā’ domination. Despite the very obvious fifties sway and swagger of this tune, this is really a fight song, with lyrics like “Whakaorangia mai mātou i ngā tauiwi, kia toa ai” (We will be delivered from the colonists to be victorious). The second part of the song more or less refers to the river as a life force, a heart link that can not be broken. In English it says “Waikato, you are the lifeblood of your people / You are not separated by a single entity.” A reverberation of the previous track.
E kore e wehea koe he mauri tuutahi ee ‘Taupiri’, Walker’s ancestral mountain is where her tipuna are buried. In the song, she speaks of how she climbed Taupiri to visit her nannies, feeling so ‘held and safe’. “He rangimārie i ngā wā katoa koe e taku maunga tapu / Auee Taupiri ee Taupiri toou tapu ee (You are of peaceful and caring nature at all times, my sacred mountain/ keep your sanctity, your holiness). This is a simple lullaby, played on guitar, and in the video, Karin Yamasaki provides simple animation to tell the tale like a bedtime story, peaceful and nurturing.
The final track is ‘He Maimai Aroha’, meant to be a companion, or book end to the opening of this album, reiterating the kaahu as a guiding force not only for the project and the music but for her life as well. Te Kaahu, in this case is her ‘he manu rangatira’ – chiefly bird. “Auē tōku kaahu he maimai aroha mōku, mō ngō whakahekenga / Rere ana aake ake (Oh my kaahu, you are a symbol of love for me and for your descendants/ It flies upwards)’.
The cover art is striking, staunch even. It’s also a look back at the Māori portraiture of 19th Century – Goldie, Lindauer, etc – the romantic notions of the “noble savage”. Perhaps a more recent reference to rappers Dam Native and the iconography they created in retaliation to these same notions. Walker has said she was challenged by the very idea that rangatira were oppressed and persecuted and yet asked to sit for these portraits as if the former never occurred. The contradiction and irony is not lost on her. In this cover, she looks out at you demanding to be seen, not ignored or marginalised as decoration. “You will not ignore me, or my people”, she is saying. It’s, perhaps a manifestation of this album’s kaupapa: recognition, healing, restoration empowerment and a respect for our elders and tupuna. Which is exactly what you get from listening to ‘Te Kaahu O Rangi’.
Matariki is a time to remember the past, those that have gone before us, and to embrace the future. Em Walker is doing this, channelling her tupuna wāhine, her nannies, through her music, finding that strength, acknowledging the past, mixing old and new. Her vocal performance is strong and confident, she owns this in every way. It’s a sidestep from her previous projects but a brave move that pays off. The Thea persona hasn’t entirely been retired, in fact she’s currently working on a new Theia album, set for release in 2023. What can’t she do? Kia Kaha, Te Kaahu. Rere tika ki nga whetu.
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