Te Kupu means literally the word. I'm a writer, poet, rapper, dj, producer, programmer, musician and video artist.
Bio 2003 Dean Hapeta aka D Word aka Te Kupu
has been bringing out south pacific indigenous hip hop and reggae for 15 years. Born in Upper Hutt, a suburb of Wellington he is of both Mäori and Pakeha (European) genealogy, his whakapapa (Mäori genealogy) is with Ngati Huia, Ngati Raukawa, Ngati Toa and Te Ati Awa, but these groupings extend to embrace the whole Mäori nation.
His musical calling first bore fruits in 1985 with the formation of a four piece reggae group, then combining rap in '88 he wrote and then released E Tu the first rap recording to be released in Aotearoa through Upper Hutt Posse the seminal group he continues to lead and manage today. In '89 UHP released their debut album Against The Flow and the following year travelled to Australia, and then to the USA as guests of the Nation Of Islam, making the group even more notorious than they had already become. In '93 UHP played at the first Polynesian Music festival in Rarotonga, but it wasn't until '95 that the second Posse album Movement In Demand was released, this time with a new group of live musicians behind the vocals of Te Kupu and his brother MC Wiya. The Mäori presence increasing with the album cover art being a collage of previous great Mäori leaders.
From '96 to '98 Te Kupu studied Mäori Law and Philosophy at Te Wänanga O Raukawa, and returning from Auckland where he'd been living for the last six years to Wellington he stepped up work on his solo album. Also performing Outernational in Canada in '96 at the Music West Conference and in the USA, spoken word performances followed at Womad (Auckland) and in Australia. In '97 the music video for Dread On A Mission was produced (the tenth UHP music video by that time - see catalogue), and in '98 the video for Tangata Whenua, produced and directed by Te Kupu was filmed in one of his ancestral Mäori meeting houses.
Later that same year he built a home recording studio - Matakahi Studios - and emerged a year later with Ko Te Matakahi Kupu (the words which penetrate) his solo album in both English and Mäori language versions. The first single and music video Vision was released in '99 and 1/1/2000 saw the albums release, the third Upper Hutt Posse album Ma Te Wa - a Mäori language reggae album was recorded and released that year also. In 2000/01 there were visits to Canada, England, France, Colombia, Jamaica and the USA, then in 2002 - Hawai'i, Cuba, Australia and returning to Jamaica and Colombia along with filming in Aotearoa saw completion of parts one and two of Ngatahi - Know The Links. A seminal figure in the local Hip Hop scene Te Kupu was a keynote speaker at the 2001 NZ Hip Hop Summit and has dj'd on Te Upoko O Te Ika & Radio Active, also with Tu Crucial Sound System. Nishin - a co-produced collaborative album with indigenous artists from Canada and the USA was also recorded in 2001, as was MC Wiya's solo Ep Anei Ko Te Wiya the music video Kia Matatu was completed in 2002 along with the fourth Upper Hutt Posse album - Te Reo Maori Remixes which received a "Tui" award at the 2003 NZ Muisc Awards for Best Mana Maori Album.
Why I Don't Cry
Why don't I cry
For the people indeed I shed tears
But for the USA
I'm all cried out
For the children in Iraq
For the people in Panama
For the land called Vieques
For the Coca growing in Colombia
I'm crying all the time.
Don't talk to me about terrorism
without knowing the slaughter of Indigenous
Yesterday, Today, and Tommorrow
Don't ask me why I don't cry
Now that the big terrorist has been hurt
Now that the arrogance is unsure
Now that the ignorant fool see its fruits
Now that the proud and haughty make threats
Now that the real war mongers feel the pain
All I feel is more of the same
A mad dog so-called Superpower is now completely off its lease
Nows a time to remember Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Nows the time to know the reasons, the causes
yet the war monger seeks not to understand
But vengeance only grips its mind
That peace is not really sought
That empty bravado is visible
That simple words of Justice and Freedom are voiced
That Terrorism is now their excuse for their Terrorism
That they suppose justice is what they seek
That America still won't admit its Global evils
That the cries of those killed by the USA
Yesterday, Today and Tommorow are silenced
Dont ask me why I don't cry
So a failing Democracy can continue
and so perverse Wealth and Poverty is held reasonable
All I feel is more of the same
Deaths in Baghdad, Deaths in Palestine, Deaths in New york City
Yes, its just more of the same
and for more of the same
I sigh
and well, I suppose after all
I can even cry
Written on September the 12th 2001 (Aotearoa time)
September the 11th 2001 (USA)
HARDCORE
Harder than Jake da Mus / I kicked his sorry ass / Cause I'm a warrior with knowledge of the past / Words of consciousness flowin' from my tongue / I'll string da fucken Ku Klux Klan up one by one / Be like Hone Heke / Don't be no weak heart fool / Nonviolence is a choice it ain't no fucken rule / Baldheads need to heed respect / Or get a bullet in the neck / Fuck the sellouts that grovel in our face / Remember Paul Chase / Like brother Moana Jackson justice done for self / Burn down that wicked courthouse / Like Dun I'll dis the Queen cause she's a hypocrite / And LKJ told me Englands just a fucken bitch / Yeah I'm a field nigger a warrior night and day / Fuck it I'm here to stay / Hardcore
Chorus - Hardcore HipHop this a hardcore rhyme / Hardcore B Boys inna hardcore times / Hardcore HipHop this a hardcore rhyme / U H Posse inna hardcore style
Check the Independence Declaration / To state beyond question that Maori are a nation / Like Crazy Horse we know the Whitemans ways / How the Muthafucka's neva hear our say / Like Kamehameha in Hawaii fighting for the land / Like the Mohawk nation take the righteous stand / Do you remember Maioro and Takaparawha / Disdainful Babylon dem disrespect my mother / Check Malcolm X the heart the influence / Like Brother Syd, Te Ahi Kaa / We don't sit on the fence / Hear Farrakhan I love the voice of Truth / Marcus Garvey well deep in roots / Like Steve Biko when the odds are down / I'll neva bow my head to the bumpnut clowns / Fuck fitting in cause this Babylon system's just corrupt / I'm hardcore till the battles up
The spirit of resistence come supreme / The wicked dem nah know what I mean / Like Pilger expose their wickedness / Until the bullshit's overcome there'll be no Fucken rest / Like Puerto Rico, Panama, and Tahiti / You picked a fight with me at the battle Wounded Knee / Like Parihaka your vileness is clear / A brother like me will neva grow despair / Fuck CNN the CIA and the F B Fucken I / I'll big up the righteous until the day I die / Like Kanaky fight French Intervention / Fuck Uncle Sam and his imperial intentions / Stand up Indigenous rights / Like the Hauhau remember our plight / Cause nah uhh I'll neva loose sight / Cause Bob Marley told me don't give up the fight
Ain't swearing for the sake of it / It's just a quicker way of sayin' shit / If you can't dig it then ya slip / I goes way back by fact of my Whakapapa / Always comin' hard from the people Ngati Raukawa / Tainui the waka I'm from / E Tu ya know I'm standin' strong / I belong in this land Aotearoa / Discovered long ago by my mighty Tupuna / So I'm on a high dedicated many many years / Fight against the racist he missed I resist / Blissed out with the knowledge of victory I'll neva stop / Drop solid props like I said to the struggle / Fed well from the words ya hear I'm sayin it / No shit / Hardcore!
Album: Movement In Demand [recorded sept/oct 1994], Written by Dean Hapeta, Leadvocals - D Word/Backing vocals - M.C. Wiya/Drums - E Robertson/Bass - Taki/Guitar & Piano - Kiki/Scratching - Rhys B
AS THE BLIND SEE
Blinded by haughty pride not in my stride - democracy in incognito with a show - ism and skism some like to blame - human beings light many flames - crime defined by partial minds interpreted in courts controlled by men enslaved in bigotry - police enforcing the law of a system blighted with myopia insiduous with discrimination - money is their god - money makes their world turn - money ain't nothing but with money they turned our world - invisible equity - biased hypocrites - wide awake no mistake no justice but they justify in their terms reasons for denied partiality - it's all comin' out as the blind see
One law for all don't mean it should be the whitemans - some people forget what it is to be human - vehement acts of suppression to we native - the deciever is driven by fear to be overcome with overstanding - misled by self doubting dubious morals from the author while questions are lost to apathy - innocent until proven guilty - by twelve men and women chosen from a society - incapable of providing free choice - unquestioned morals serve as a litmus test - for which only the sheep believe for they haven't yet seen or heard or overstood what the righteous heed - but the blind will see and then we'll see
This laws a redneck law - institutional racism with blameless flaws - this justice wretched by nepotists - bigotted in concept -inept and lacking depth - they neva wanna hear it - got the masses subdued into an - only the good news mode - while we get mainly bad news on the news - well excuse me - cause I'm bringing the good news - cause I refuse to be quelled - by the moral right left or whateva - who cares anyway - I even say when I care - burdened with a chip on my shoulder - no shit - know ya place cause I do - I'm so overjoyed to help the blind see
Album: Movement In Demand [recorded sep/oct 1994], Written by D Hapeta, Lead vocals, Hammond organ, Wah organ, Piano - D Word/Backing vocals - Emma Paki/Bass - F Harawira/Drums - E Robertson/Guitar - Kiki
REBELLION - the usurpation
The true rebels are rulers of nations
True rebels are false civilisations
Dem rebel against the words of great fathers
Desecrate the beauty of we mother
They will seek to destroy
Everything they cannot control
Try extinguish the mauri they cannot behold
A life is born a life shall die
Dem scorch de earth dem blight da sky
Perverted seasons asking why
A seed shall sow shall multiply
Shall multiply
The true rebels are rulers of nations
The true rebels are false civilisations
Dem rebel against the words of great fathers
Dem desecrate the beauty of we mother
In sentences of stone and water
Blood drips on all sons and daughters
In laws of man is disorder
Righteousness overcomes all borders
All borders
To err is to show of a master
To deter why has one got such armour
Hungers not leased to the heart
A fire has burned from the start
A fire has burned from the start
The true rebels are rulers of nations
The true rebels are false civilisations
Them rebel against the words of great fathers
Dem desecrate the beauty of we mother
TE HONENGA
Te tino whakakeke ko ngä rangatira-parau
Te tino whakatumatuma
Ko ngä kanekanetanga-parau
Ka whana rätou i a Ranginui
Ka häparua Papatüänuku e rätou
Mehemea e kore e taea e rätou te whakahaere
Ka turakina! ka whakamätauria e rätou
Kia poko ai te mauri Ka whänau, ä, ka mate noa
Kua Köaro te whenua i a rätou, pokea te rangi
Ko tenei he wä aweke, e rangahau ana
Ka ruia te käkano, ka rea noa ake,
Ka ruia te käkano Kei ngä körero-köhatu, körero-wai
Patapata noa iho te toto ki runga i ngä tamariki katoa
Kei ngä ture tängata he küwawa
Ko te tika i raupatu i ngä aukati katoa, I ngä aukati katoa
Ko te hë i whakaatu i tëtehi tohunga
Hei aha te päkai-riri, inä te whakaupaupa
E kore e whakamutu te koroingo i te manawa
Mai i te tïmatanga kä tonu mai te ahi,
Kä tonu mai te ahi
WAR - the perpetration
If war is the absence of peace
Then we've always been at war
Cause we ain't never had no peace
Cause we ain't never had no peace
Disobedience is their forte
Brainwashing is the tactic
If ya don't play by their rules
But who makes war with their mother
Can ya tell me
Its the beast who come try ta kill we
Warmongers
Da great hypocrites of now time
Unseen by senses of want
Can't ya feel da greed
We no want war but you give war
We no want war but we'll fight war
Until the rednecks
Who think them superior
Realise that them
Are the scariest
Sight to behold right here
And everywhere
There shall be war
There shall be war I'm going forward with the past
But still they come forward fast
Stepping on foundations
For creations of salutations
When they try and kill the native sons
The wicked work has come
Messing with minds
Some don't even know
There's a war going on
Some don't even know
War is not a state
In which we want to be
We'd prefer to live In peaceful harmony
Weapons of warfare
Are not only guns, tanks
And bombs they're television,
Radio and schools
Fools strung out
On what they told ya
To control ya
Not wise when
The speakers despise
Spread lies
Ain't no smoke
In da now soldiers eyes
No calls to devils
Can sidetrack exactedness
That don't stand back
Don't come slack
Set to attack are hearts
Woven from earth
To rid the world of song and verse
Composed by those who suffer still
From strangulation of the will
Of others who have tears to spill
For beauty stolen crushed or burnt
A lesson has been learnt Transgression
TE WHAKATETE
Mehemea ka ngaro te rongo ko te pakanga
E tika ana hoki e pakanga whäroa ana mätou
Nä te mea, kore rawa he hononga o ngä iwi
E rua o te Tiriti, kore rawa he hononga pai
Ko mätou käre i te pakanga
Rätou kei te whakarukea
Ko mätou käre i te pakanga, engari ka patua
He toa rätou ki te whätuturi
Ki te kore koe e täoru
He körure - roro tä rätou nuka
Ko wai te tangata i pakanga ki töna whaea
E taea e koe te whakautu
Ko te Hätana tërä, i haere mai nei
Ki te patu i a mätou, kaimärehe!
Ngä tino mäminga rätou o tenei wä
Ana, te whakaaro touapo kitea te homanga
Tae noa ki te Kakï-Whero te möhio
Ehara ia i te tängata pai ake
Hei ia takiwä, hei ia takiwä, ko te pakanga!
Ka neke whakamua au me te mätauranga
Engari tä rätou pötatu i takahi rätou
I ngä tüäpapa i mihia ai te rangi
I a rätou e tarai ana ki te patu i ngä uri a
Tane mä
Koia tonu te mahi kino rawa
He tangata whakariro kë rätou, ana, kätahi te whakakonuka
Ehara i te pakanga te hiahia
Pai ake te whakaaro märire tahi, ehara i te pakanga te hiahia
Ehara ëtehi momo pü anake te räkau o te riri
Ko te tiwi, reo irirangi, kura hoki
Käre i te pai te whakahäwea nä ngä
Kaikörero Käre kau he auahi i ngä karu o ngä
Hoia-ä-rangi
E kore e taea te karanga ki ngä Hätana
E purupuru tä mätou nei ätetenga
E tü tonu ana käre he mänenei
Whita! ko ngä manawa rarangatia e te oneone
Me tinei te kino i te ao titoa e rätou e mamae tonu ana
Mö ä rätou nati i te whakaaro pai o ngä Tängata Whenua,
Tängata hümarie , te pöritarita, aue te hara!
He akoranga rere tonu mai,
Te Whakatete
