Speaker by Various Artists

The first portent of doom came last week, when our company got a flash new sign for the front of the building. In the alternative universe of Management this could only mean one thing. We were about to be shut down.

Then our two aging pool cars were suddenly replaced with brand new 2005 models. We even had a tutorial on the operation of their Tiptronic transmissions. As one scientist commented: "Jesus Christ, it's like management have sent along the Grim Reaper to point his finger at us."

The final harbinger of apocalypse arrived when the mechanical and electrical workshop managers were sent to be certified as part of an expensive health and safety course. The mechanical workshop manager turned ashen at the news. "They're going to sack me," he groaned, "why else would they spend that much money to have me trained up?"

The bad news came on Tuesday. More than half of the staff were to be made redundant. The site was to be closed. Some of the remaining staff would be transferred to head office in Wellington, the rest would stay on in Christchurch -- at least, until their research funding had been used up.

It wasn't really much of a shock. We are all scientists and engineers at a Crown Research Institute (CRI) -- a remnant of the old Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR). When the DSIR was split up into a gaggle of brave new CRIs with a contestable funding system, the British journal 'New Scientist' ran the headline: "New Zealand Shoots Itself in the Brain!" They were quite right. As with many large dinosaurs, it has just taken a while for news of the bullet to be transmitted to the rest of the organism.

Working at a CRI has sometimes been a bit like those post-apocalypse movies, where rag-clad scavengers pick through the ruins of a once-mighty civilization. Elderly scientists collar you in corridors to reminisce about golden days when the DSIR was at the height of its powers. Beautifully-constructed machinery lies gathering cobwebs; useless because the calibration records end abruptly on 30th June 1992, the day the DSIR was disbanded. However, in spite of this, a great deal of good science is still being done. The world's most widely used HTS (high temperature superconductor) material was invented at our CRI. Tetraplegics are having their lives transformed by our assistive devices. The Los Alamos National Laboratory's new proton radiography camera uses our 'Kiwistar' optics. Best of all, the DSIR tradition of science excellence is not yet forgotten at our CRI. Although I have been with the CRI for only a short time -- having finished my Ph.D. just last year -- this tradition has already made a strong impression on me.

But, alas, for Christchurch -- after 50 years -- it all ended on Tuesday. In the meeting room, the announcement of closure was followed by an unusual noise -- one I must be prepared to hear many times if I continue a science career in New Zealand. It was the sound of a roomful of scientists thoughtfully trying to remember when they last saw a Situations Vacant advertisement for an expert in gravity waves, or Stirling cycle thermodynamics, or the mechanics of vibration of bees' abdomens.

In my opinion, the disintegration of our CRI highlights one of the problems of the current contestable funding system. Though laudable in its attempt to give the taxpayer the biggest possible bang for their research buck, the bureaucracy involved means that it virtually costs more to apply for funding than the funding is worth. A staggering amount of a scientist's time is now spent writing funding proposals rather than doing science. The red tape is almost unimaginable. On some occasions it has been necessary for our CRI to hire a six-tonne truck to deliver its funding applications to FRST (the main New Zealand science funding body). Yes, the paperwork is measured in tonnes rather than pages.

And, of course, the vast quantity of time spent writing proposals is in no way a guarantee of funding. The scientist must employ telepathy to work out what FRST will fund at any given moment. FRST have become renowned for making the sort of capricious and unfathomable decisions which are normally associated with crazed North Korean dictators. One minute they're only supporting pure science. The next they've changed their minds, and won't consider anything but applied technology. No-one would be surprised if FRST suddenly proclaimed that first-born scientists were to be beheaded, or that we all have to go to Guyana and drink Kool-aid laced with cyanide.

But for me, personally, the demise of our Christchurch research laboratories is not a major setback. Funding for my research projects will last another year or so, which gives me a bit of time to plan for the future. Although -- that said -- management moves in mysterious ways. There is no reason why they might not suddenly ask an expert in -- for example -- the design of wheelchairs, to continue my energy engineering work. But, whatever happens, I am entirely confident of finding another job. The unfortunate thing, however, is that it might not be in New Zealand.

The disintegration of our CRI has a wider impact than that felt by the scientists involved. It is widely acknowledged that most first-world countries are dependent on science and technology to maintain their standard of living. If the scientific research laboratories of this country are beginning to collapse, then the eventual outcome can only be bad news for New Zealand.

Addendum

In a somewhat bizarre footnote to these events, AgResearch Chief Executive Dr Andy West has just called for the recruitment of 1,300 more scientists a year -- for the next ten years -- in order to maintain New Zealand's science capabilities, i.e. a total of 13,000 scientists. Good luck, dude.

PLEASE NOTE: THE VIEWS EXPRESSED HEREIN ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHOR, AND DO NOT PURPORT TO REPRESENT THE OPINIONS OF HIS EMPLOYER IN ANY WAY.

The following is a statement and backgrounder released by 14 New Zealand Herald columnists whose work was placed behind the "premium content" paywall on the newspaper's website in September. They have been negotiating with APN management, initially for the columns to return to free access and subsequently for a share of the additional revenue reaped by the Herald from their work and/or new contracts in which the copyright of their work would rest with them. They have had no success in those talks and have chosen to release the statement to explain their position - RB.

----

The 14 contributing columnists ambushed by the introduction of the NZ Herald website premium content section are Brian Gaynor, Garth George, Peter Griffin, Jim Hopkins, Colin James, Andrew Lumsden (Te Radar), Tapu Misa, Graham Reid, Jenny Ruth, Ana Samways (Sideswipe), Philippa Stevenson, Paul Thomas, Willy Trolove and Kerre Woodham.

The history:

Unannounced and without any reference to us, around September 21 the Herald introduced a pay-to-view section on its website which it called Premium Content.

All our columns were corralled in the section, inaccessible even to us unless we wanted to pay to see our own work.

All of a sudden we'd been dubbed premium writers but we felt like premium mushrooms - kept in the dark but not even fed any bullshit. We were told nothing.

The Herald website before this change and since its inception, like most other newspaper websites in the world, has been open access. We understand the Herald website was already turning a profit from advertising.

Now subscribers are asked to pay double the weekday Herald cover price - $3 - for one day's access to all website content. Casual buyers of the paper pay just $1.50.

The effect on us was immediate and obvious: our feedback and our much-valued conversation with our readers dried up immediately. Though some of our departing readers did let us know that they wouldn't be paying to read us online and unfortunately some seemed to think the paywall was our idea. They indicated that we were money-grubbing prima donnas. In fact, we are victims of such types.

Ironically, some readers tell us they have since done the numbers and have realised that it is a lot cheaper to dump the print edition of the paper and just get their news online. A year's online subscription is $99, whereas a year's sub to the print edition is more than $500. (Six months online $60 v print $252.20).

It seems a strange move to us to sacrifice or cannibalise the print edition for the online edition in this way.

What we've done:

After the paywall was introduced we initiated talks with the Herald and have been trying ever since to get changes made. Our first plea, naturally, was to return to free access but we quickly got a flat no to that.

They've apologised for not letting us know about the paywall's introduction but that's the only concession they've made.

Though they did make what they called a gesture of goodwill. That was to provide us with free access to the website. Great! We had free access to our own work and a resource we use to research our columns. Some goodwill!

It bugs us that the Herald is double dipping. Most of us signed on when the website was a small cousin, a sort of lowly add-on to the Herald. The main publication - really the only publication - was the print edition. Our freelance journalist pay rates - which haven't changed in years - reflect the days when there was only a paper, and the Herald only made money from the paper.

Now, not only is one of their major outlets the already profitable website but they are now charging readers double the weekday cover price to read our columns online and they have not offered us another cent.
Unfortunately, may of us signed contacts allowing our columns to be used on the old, free website. We argue that the Herald has made a major material and unilateral change to our contracts by charging for website access but they deny this.

In one message to us they said, "your primary constituency remains with the print edition."

Well, they may conveniently think so but our readers say different. How come our feedback has dried up since people had to pay to read us online? It does rather suggest we've got a very big online readership.
Apparently, we're supposed to be happy with a pay rate dating from print-only days because, according to one argument they put to us, we get "intangibles" such as the exposure of a regular column in the Herald.
Well, you can't buy bread with intangibles. And none of our contracts say that part of our reward for writing for the Herald is these unquantified intangibles.

What we've asked for:

We've asked for more money to reflect the additional profit-making use of our work and been told no.

It seems particularly mean because we might be premium writers but by golly our rates are bargain basement. A Herald staff feature writer earns $60,000 a year or more. At our pay rates of between 30c and 40c/word if we turned out the same amount of copy per week as the average feature writer we'd earn the equivalent of $16,000 to $22,000 a year. (We're mostly paid per column so the word rate varies depending on the words published.)

We could be contrasted, too, with staff columnists who are on similarly high salaries complete with sick pay, holiday pay and super schemes and who get offices, computers and other resources supplied.

We've asked for new, more comprehensive contracts that reflect the new era of multiple use of stories including internet publishing.

We want to retain the copyright to our stories so we have the right to do whatever we want with them after the Herald has published them. Employers automatically own the copyright of works created by their staff but independent contractors retain copyright unless they sign it away. Unfortunately, and in ignorance of copyright law, most of us signed away our copyright. That means the Herald pays us a meagre sum just once but can use our work in as many ways as it wants, as often as it wants, and well into the future.

We think it only fair that if the Herald wants to pay us rates born in the print-only era that they should not also insist on owning the copyright. That stops us from selling our stories elsewhere - overseas, in book form or just simply putting them on our own websites. They can't have it all ways.

"The thing that irks me about the whole Halloween business," I said, "is that it's such an overt demonstration of American cultural imperialism. It's not that I don't like handing out chocolate and sweets. It's just that I don't like doing it in a way that's been imposed on my culture by a bunch of marketing executives, whose motive is simply to get me to spend my money on tacky decorations and novelty junk food."

The young skeleton on the doorstep hung its head with disappointment.

"And if you ask me," I continued, as Jennifer put me into a spousal arm-lock and forced me down the hallway, "Wayne Mapp would be much better employed eradicating things like Halloween, rather than the Human Rights Commission." I could hear Jennifer returning to the front door. The sound of her footsteps was followed by a loud rustling noise as she filled the skeleton's sack with Mars bars.

"It's like tipping," I said five minutes later to two vampires. "At one stage, no-one even contemplated tipping in New Zealand. In fact -- before you were born -- I once saw a taxi driver throw an American out of his cab because he was so offended at being given a tip. But now, there are 'tipping jars' everywhere. Some of them with passive-aggressive signs saying: 'Tipping is not illegal in New Zealand.' But what in God's name are we actually tipping them for? We're tipping them for doing their job, which we've already paid them for as part of our bill. Why should I pay them twice? Nobody pays me twice -- and I can do things like solving differential equations, which is much harder than writing down what sort of coffee people want."

"Have you ever been to America?" I demanded of the ghost. The ghost held out its bag and shook its head. "Well, in America you have to tip 15 per cent minimum for anything connected with food. And 15 per cent minimum actually means 20 per cent. So if you order a pizza over the phone, and then you go and collect it, you have to tip the pizza guy 20 per cent. That's just for picking up the pizza and handing it to you. The guy doesn't even speak, he just hands you the pizza and the bill! And guess what, if you go to a restaurant, and the service is really terrible, and the waiter treats you like you've got bird flu -- are you allowed to NOT tip him? Nope. You're supposed to tip him exactly 15 per cent, so that when he looks at the bill afterwards, and does the maths, he'll get really offended because the amount is so exact. That's right, you punish him via mathematical accuracy! And this will be happening in New Zealand soon, you mark my words. But does anyone care? Does Wayne Mapp care? No. He's too busy complaining about lolly-scrambles."

"Now I know how Cheryl David feels," called out Jennifer from the sitting room.

"As a werewolf," I said to the werewolf a few minutes later, "you'll sympathize with what I'm about to say. Different things annoy different people. Some people are maddened by the idea that solo mothers are given money to look after their children. It doesn't bother me. In fact, I'm happy to be living in a society where we care for children. What gets on my goat is American spelling. And I say this as someone who recently drove from New York to Canada just so I could buy Harry Potter in International English. I don't mind American spelling in America, but it drives me bananas in New Zealand. We're suddenly watching television programs instead of programmes, and buying aluminum foil instead of aluminium foil. And it used to be Laz-E-Boy, but now it's La-Z-boy which doesn't make any sense when you pronounce 'Z' as 'zed'. Hey, tell me something. Are your parents werewolves as well? Did they vote National? Well give them this message from me, buddy... "

After I sent the werewolf home crying, I sat down heavily on the sofa next to Jennifer. "Bloody Halloween," I said, "it's so exhausting. Let's hope it doesn't happen next year."

HANDICAPPED PARKING MUST GO
Friday, 28 October 2005, 10:38 am
Press Release: New Zealand National Party
Dr Wayne Mapp
National Party Spokesman for Political Correctness Eradication

National Party Spokesman for Political Correctness Eradication, Wayne Mapp, says that politically correct handicapped parking must be eliminated.

"Mainstream New Zealanders are sick and tired of politically correct pandering to the handicapped," says Dr Mapp. "Most people would give their right arms to have the hand-outs and opportunities that are lavished on the disabled. Personally, I've never been on a benefit in my life. I've got where I am today by standing on my own two feet. I doubt many handicapped people could say the same thing."

"And yet, when I go to a restaurant after a hard day of playing golf with my fellow mainstream New Zealanders, I find that there are no parking spaces. Why? Because all the good parks have been taken by selfish handicapped people!"

Dr Mapp's statements are strongly supported by National Party Leader Don Brash. "I've promoted Dr Mapp to the role of Spokesman for Political Correctness Eradication as a result of an excellent speech that he made in the Koru Club bar the other day," says Dr Brash.

"Like Dr Mapp, I have very serious concerns about the free ride that is being doled out to the handicapped by this Labour Government. I particularly object to the fact that -- like many other politically correct people -- the handicapped seem to have no sense of humour. Few people enjoy a good joke more than me, except perhaps my wife, who is from Singapore. At least Maori are happy-go-lucky, laughing people, content to sit in the sun and eat watermelons. Or, rather, they were before political correctness came along."

Dr Mapp's comments have attracted praise from author and columnist Alan Duff. "Who cares about minorities anyway! I don't expect special treatment just because I'm Maori. And if I were handicapped I certainly wouldn't want people to build ramps and parking spaces for me."

Dr Mapp says that Duff's reaction shows that his campaign will strike a chord with most New Zealanders. "Of course I wouldn't want Alan to join my golf club. Not because he's Maori -- no, quite the contrary. But because we wouldn't want people to think we're letting him in just because he's Maori -- if you see what I mean."

"There's an old German saying: Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer, which translates as: one country, one people, one mainstream. I think that this could be a marvellous slogan for New Zealand. The problem with handicapped people is that they're not mainstream. It's quite easy to define who is mainstream or not. One measure is -- to put it crudely -- that you don't have to sit down to go to the toilet. I'm afraid that most handicapped people do."

Dr Mapp's campaign has generated widespread support from across the political spectrum, including retired ACT MP Deborah Coddington. "Handicapped parking is political correctness gone mad," says Ms Coddington. "It just encourages handicapped people to breed, and will result in a whole generation of wheel-chair bound children. Children who, in turn, will have to be supported by the hard-working Kiwi taxpayer. While it's totally acceptable for business leaders to 'sleep around' and 'sow their wild oats', I think that most New Zealanders would agree that it's quite inappropriate for beneficiaries to enjoy themselves, let alone have sex."

"Handicapped people are giving our country an untidy, cluttered look," adds Dr Mapp. "I certainly wouldn't want a handicapped person for a next-door-neighbour. I'm quite sure they wouldn't mow their lawns properly."

Dr Mapp plans to introduce legislation which will force the government to eliminate handicapped parking spaces, or to place them as far away from buildings as possible. "There are also other, more radical, solutions which I intend to investigate when National returns to government, and I become Minister for Political Correctness Eradication. The permanent removal of handicapped people from mainstream society is certainly a possibility. Personally, I think that a few discreetly-placed 'eradication' camps would be infinitely preferable to hundreds of handicapped people cluttering up New Zealand with their wheelchairs and mobility scooters."

ENDS

This week sees the release of my new book, Making Music in New Zealand and Russell Brown thought it would be a good time for me to write a post about music, writing about music, and hip hop in this country (my previous book was Hip Hop Music in Aotearoa. It also happens to be the week of the annual hip hop summit at the Town Hall and Aotea Square in Auckland (a free event, though tickets have to be picked up from Ticketek), so it's all the more timely for me to have a soapbox to briefly stand on. I do occasionally write in my own online journal , but let's hope what I have to say is more ordered than the random rants that I put down there.

Music writing in New Zealand has always been a mixed bag, though, like NZ music, it has had one thing going for it - since there is little chance of making money from it, most people involved in the field did it due to genuine interest rather the search for monetary gain. Nonetheless when I spoke at the Writer's festival earlier this year, Graham Reid was also on the panel and made an interesting point - there used to be a time when a journalist could write about a band at any time and there didn't need to be an album or tour to promote in order to justify an article.

It is also disappointing to read articles that are focused more on the musician as celebrity rather than the musician as an artist (or worse, articles that tell you more about the journalist than about the musician). I suppose this is one reason why I have based my two music books around long sections of quotes from musicians, with only a little bit of interruption from my own narration. Therefore, my latest book is primarily local musicians telling anecdotes and relating experiences from their own careers. My intention was to create a book that fans of NZ music might appreciate, whilst also creating a source book for young musicians so that they would be inspired and knowledgeable about the field they were getting into (and there are more specific sections that provide crucial knowledge for such musicians).

The New Zealand music scene has grown enormously over the last decade and a big part of that has been through government initiatives, which have created a mainstream music culture to sit on top of the underground music culture that always existed. This didn't just occur because of the money which was thrown at musicians for music videos and recordings but also because of the dedicated work of the NZ on Air pluggers. In the US, record companies are constantly berating radio stations through their pluggers to play their music, but in NZ the record labels couldn't justify the spending, so the government filled the gap - providing pluggers for appropriate NZ tracks. Now we are in the happy position of having a continuum of music from the underground bands of K'Rd right through to the chart successes of the Feelers and Scribe.

Now there is more of a platform for NZ musicians to take their music overseas. If there are two lessons that I would like musicians to take from my latest book then they are these: a musician needs to know how APRA works; and a musician will sometimes need to be innovative and bypass usual channels if they are to succeed. Record companies are often quite supportive in terms of giving advance royalties to cover recording costs and promotion, but musicians need to realize that this money will have to be paid off before they get money from album sales.

APRA provides a more direct income source through broadcasting/performance rights for song-writers - which is one reason Carly Binding has a successful career (since she now writes her own songs) whilst Ben Lummis is still wondering how he could sell so many albums and still be so poor. The off-shoots of the major labels who exist in NZ will often sign acts that fit a certain genre that has succeeded overseas, but this can be limiting since taking this music overseas will be simply taking more of the same music that they already have in abundance. Often it is still necessary to take your music directly to the US, just as the artists from Flying Nun found they had to do in the 80s and 90s.

One discovery that all artists soon make is that they are at the bottom of the food-chain when it comes to getting paid: the gallery owner might make a living whilst the artists who exhibit in the gallery do not and it is the same with musicians and their record labels. This is one reason why I hope my book makes musicians a little more savvy about the industry (rather than claiming just to be artists and burying their heads in the sand).

To exemplify this point a bit, I think it is worth quoting DJ Ali, who was the original organizer of the annual hip hop summit. The following is a quote that I left out of my previous book on Hip Hop Music in Aotearoa:

DJ Ali - "When we started, a lot of people in hip hop undersold themselves. And I did it as well - I didn't realise the worth of what we were doing. Like for me personally, I'm from South Auckland and I've never had any money, ya know, so for someone to give me a free shirt to wear at a gig, I was like - hell yeah, I don't need to pay for that shirt! But it's only a few years down the track I realised - oh shit, if 500 people in the club see me wearing their shirt, they might wanna go buy that shirt the next day. So I'm making a lot of money for this person that's giving me a shirt, which might've cost him only ten dollars to make. They could possibly make a hundred, two-hundred dollars off of me. Until you make that connection then you're sorta like - 'Yeah, hell, yeah, can I have a pair of undies as well? Make it really special!' Now it's like - fuck giving me a T-shirt, give me some fucking money as well. But when you approach people in that type of way, it doesn't go down too well. But if we all accept free T-shirts and free drinks at the bar then that'll be the way the industry goes for a long time. But until we all say - 'nah, you fucking give me some serious money and then we can talk' - then that's the reality, ya know? Being at the top of the charts is like being an All Black, even if it's for a very short amount of time, so you have to equate that into a certain amount of pulling power and say - 'I don't want a free T-shirt

or drinks at the bar. I wanna get me a car.' But until we all think that way, it'll never happen because this is what'll happen - the marketers will just go, nah I can just hire that dude over there, he's probably gonna replace you next week anyway, and I can just give him fuck all. If you compare us to the level of rugby sponsorship or whatever, we don't get anywhere near that. But it took a long time for rugby and all the marketing money to get to where it is. We came up in a time back in 2000 when everyone was laughing at Dawnraid and what they wanted to achieve. Then they bought a printing firm, a hairdressing business, and a studio - and now everyone's like "oh, yeah, true, you can do that." . So we've come from a time when we had fuck all, and we're at a time now when everyone thinks anything's possible ... I mean, my aim is still to have fun, but making money is a big part of it, because if you don't make money what are you going to do? You'll be dead in the water. You've gotta make money to live. But talking about making money off being a musician, especially in hip hop, is sorta taboo. You don't want to talk about it, because people get really jealous and envious of it. But when we talk about making money to live - that's the reality. It's not like making money to fuckin' buy mansions. We're definitely focused on making money ... Love is a bit part of the hip hop community but love only goes so far. Love doesn't pay the bills!"

Things have definitely come a long way for hip hop and now it is no surprise to see it plastered over the media in different forms. I hope that the fact that my book on Hip Hop Music in Aotearoa won a Montana Award might help to extend people' s understanding that hip hop isn't just an imported fad. However, I still a bit disappointed when I see something like "hip hop tours" used as a political football. I'm not going to try to justify the money spent on that particular piece of funding, but it is worthwhile to note that it was actually only one "tour" not multiple "tours" and that Sara Tamati was one of the people that created the strong Christchurch hip hop scene, out of which came both Scribe and the original hip hop summit (both of which have gone on to generate huge amounts of money). Perhaps it is time that the wider public started taking on some of the positive aspects of hip hop. Here is another unused quote from my hip hop book, which says what I would've hoped would be obvious:

Koma (from Four Corners) "People've probably heard it over and over again but if it wasn't for this hip hop thing man, things'd be different for us. Like most of the Maori brothers from our neighbourhood go to jail. And that's it - you spend a year in jail, come out, do a year in jail, come out. We're surrounded by people like that, that's how it rolls down here. But hip hop is pretty much our hold on what we wanna do. It's a positive thing, it keeps you out of trouble - if you're breaking or MCing or cutting it up. Even the graf these days, cats are getting down with it, letting you paint it on their community wall and stuff. So it is a positive thing .... Me and Heps haven't been to jail - we're probably the only two cats out of our mates that haven't been to jail yet. We're trying to keep it like that. Some of the cats we know that've been there and done that tell us - 'nah, nah, it's a horrible place, it's not for you man, you guys keep doing this.' So hip hop is a positive thing, it's had a good effect on us."

As for the negative side of hip hop, let me defer to a couple more unused quotes:

P-Money "Rappers ARE violent, rappers ARE sexist, rappers are ALSO intelligent, stupid, funny, enthralling, thought provoking, political, apathetic, melancholy, spiritual, capitalists, business-minded, criminal-minded and all things in between. To say hip-hop is exclusively violent and sexist is ignorant. I personally feel that there is a lack of responsibility felt by most mainstream rappers today, which is of great concern, but I still feel that the positive impact of hip-hop amongst the young people of the world far outweighs the negative ... Emerging hip-hop generation of New Zealand are creating and discovering new business opportunities that didn't exist before (ala dawnraid, disruptiv, holla, dirty records etc.). And these businesses combined with the music are serving to inspire the current generation of young New Zealanders by showing them that you can make a life for yourself and a career out of doing what you love."

Mareko "I remember when Eminem came out, people were like - this dude should be banned. Then, all of a sudden, he wins one Grammy and those same dudes are saying - this dude's a poet, one of the best poets of our time. And I'm like - that's all good, but people have been doing stuff like that for years. The reality is that only a minority of cats that do that negative stuff. From the start, Hip hop was based on positivity - it was born out of poverty and hardship and ghettos - and hip hop was like a media for fun and having a good time ... You do have the derogatory part of hip hop - it's like everything, you've gotta have that balance of negativity and positivity. Hip hop has that same balance. There's that gangsta rapping that appeals to kids more and you might see a lot of gansta rapping on TV and that, but there's heaps of positive stuff out there too . The good thing about New Zealand is that the hip hop in the mainstream is good hip hop music. It's not some watered down bubble-gum pop shit that America might be getting in their top twenty . If you look at something like Scribe's song, 'Stand Up', that's good hip hop music, it's not wack . I mean, Scribe and me, we're like the youngest dudes and I'm like twenty-two this year [in 2003]. And all of a sudden we're on this massive trip that a lot of cats will never do in their lifetimes. When I see myself on the cover of a magazine, I still can't believe it. I tell everyone it's not real - it's crazy."

Hopefully, if you've got this far then you will be happy enough if I finish this piece with another quote from my unused backlog. I thought it would be fitting to end with some words from Phil Fuemana who was one of the pioneers of hip hop in South Auckland during the 90s and who died earlier this year:

Phil Fuemana "I am pretty sure that most of us - like me, in our mid-to-late thirties - we remember what our parents gave up for us ... The shit that they had to go through was unbelievable. They had the whole dawn raid thing. My Dad got put in prison 'cause they thought he was Samoan overstayer. I remember walking into a shop and him getting chased and running away. Cops running past us and grabbing him. I was just standing there - I was probably about seven, just watching this go down and thinking 'what tha?' He came back a few hours later, but that distress, it makes you think of that Bowling in Columbine movie - living in fear. Now, whenever I walk into a restaurant, everyone's all - 'fuck I'd better watch out' - ya know? I'm the last person to bloody beat you up. Probably some other dopey egg is gonna do it. Like I wanna jeopardise my life like that - but that's the way it's perceived ... When me and my crew started out in the music biz we never wanted to save the world. We didn't say - 'let's save everyone, lets lead the way for PIs' - fuck off! We were trying to make money and dissing everyone else along the way - 'they're fuckin' useless, we'll do a better R'n'B track than them, we'll do a better hip hop track than them.' We were as arrogant as anyone else, but that's what happens on nearly all projects that are inspirational to people - they just happen. They're driven and then you think - fuck I'm gonna be like that. Now I read an article in Real Groove and Andy [Murnane, from Dawnraid] mentions me and I remember it was Andy's

job carrying the bags - he was just this white guy, who was Danny's mate and now he's one of the leading hip hop innovators for our country. I didn't even know him. That's what inspiration is - him and Danny have gone on to inspire heaps of people ... Some people in the media did used to pick on us because they thought we were trying to be American, but then they'd fuckin' eat KFC and McDonalds like everyone else. But all they saw was these brownies - who are perceived to be the ones who do all the trouble - choosing a genre that's equal to trouble in the States. But I wouldn't even believe what you hear from the States. I mean, there's probably a million times more black people not into hip hop, ya know? There 's a whole heap of black people in the US who are middle class and they probably like country music or soul music ... So as far as that argument about us in the media - it just seems like something to look at ... At the same time, we're lucky because as PIs, our hip hop does have a PI flavour and gives us a unique point of difference. And in the end, as Kiwis - whether that be Coconuts, Maoris, Pakehas, or whatever - we have our flavour and that's gonna be what gets us to wherever we're going . And I am happy with how things have turned out over the years, because these days I can look at the charts and see a group like Nesian Mystik on there and I know it 's been worthwhile. It's definitely all good."