The Press

THE GENTLE PIONEER

From the rugby pitch to the airwaves, Dame Hinewehi Mohi has turned the nation on to waiata Māori. Te Aorewa Rolleston finds out how.

Fresh-faced, no hint of makeup, her hair pulled back in a loose ponytail, Dame Hinewehi Mohi is radiant at 60. She exudes a quiet serenity as she settles in for a kōrero from her home near Havelock North, her voice every bit a reflection of her demeanour. But for all the calm Mohi embodies, history marks this gentle descendant of Ngāti Kahungunu and Ngāi Tūhoe as a force to be reckoned with, her actions directly responsibl­e for cultural change in Aotearoa.

It’s a “love affair with waiata” that has seen the singer carve out a career in the music industry, leading to moments in the national and global spotlight, including a damehood in 2021 for her contributi­on to music, television production, charity work and te reo Māori.

The spotlight is seeking her out again, with Mohi to be inducted into the New Zealand Music Hall of Fame at the Aotearoa Music Awards on May 30, placing her among some of the most recognised figures of New Zealand music, including Dave Dobbyn, The Herbs, Annie Crummer and Don McGlashan.

It’s an honour she doesn’t feel entirely comfortabl­e with.

“I don’t have that big of a body of work like that. I understand it, but I did feel overwhelme­d by the company that I’m keeping.”

Of more significan­ce to her is the platform such recognitio­n provides to promote waiata reo Māori, waiata reo rua (bilingual) and the importance of portraying the cultural identity and rich heritage of tangata whenua through music in Aotearoa.

The accolade comes 25 years since Mohi appeared on the Rugby World Cup stage at Twickenham in London, surprising everyone when she sang New Zealand’s national anthem in te reo Māori.

Mohi’s star was on the rise, having not long released her debut studio album, Oceania. The reo Māori double platinum-selling album was a rarity, the first Māori language album to be released internatio­nally and one of only a handful of reo Māori and bilingual projects at the time.

Rising star or not, New Zealand was not quite prepared for the historic political statement Mohi made on that world stage in 1999, just as the singer was unprepared for the fallout that followed.

“There certainly wasn’t social media which was probably a good thing. I might have never recovered from the onslaught of people’s thinking if social media had been around,” Mohi says.

While she had thought about the impact of singing the reo Māori version that evening, “It was quite a reaction”, she says.

“I felt it was time to consider what the priority or lack of priority at the time was for te reo Māori. To sing our national anthem in the Indigenous language of the land and have such an adverse reaction was very upsetting.”

She says she never quite got over the backlash despite a part of New Zealand’s cultural framework being forever changed. No one bats an eyelid now when the anthem is sung in te reo Māori.

Mohi’s love of music and te reo Māori grew from a childhood spent at her father’s side, listening to Māori records.

Caught in “that generation” who weren’t taught Māori or Māori wasn’t spoken in the home, her father’s struggle to reclaim the language remains imprinted in Mohi’s consciousn­ess.

“Dad realised when he was about 30 or 31years-old that he really wanted to learn te reo Māori and would play old vinyl records on the LP player to sort of get his ears used to the sound of the language.

“As a 10 or 11-year-old, I didn’t really understand the gravity of it until my grandparen­ts celebrated a wedding anniversar­y and Dad hadn’t told them about starting to learn the reo. He got up and did a sort of simple mihimihi [greeting] and they were crying, it was just really emotional.

“He asked me to sing a waiata, which I couldn’t really finish off because it was the first time I’d seen the impact of language loss on everyone.”

Mohi’s childhood home on the outskirts of Waipukurau in Hawke’s Bay came with all the benefits of a rural Kiwi lifestyle. She enjoyed

“riding my motorbike and hanging out with my animals”'.

But it’s the memories of her father playing old tunes, reciting the bits of reo sprinkled throughout, sowing the seeds which would blossom into her career, that Mohi treasures most.

Decades on, it feels like Mohi has gone full circle with her work as curator and producer of the 2019 Waiata/Anthems album.

The collection of well-known Kiwi tracks, translated into te reo and re-recorded by the original artists, has transforme­d Aotearoa’s music landscape.

Featuring artists like Benee, Shapeshift­er, Six60 and Bic Runga, the album debuted at No 1 on the New Zealand Music Charts, elevating reo Māori music on streaming platforms, radio and social media.

Celebratin­g its fifth anniversar­y this year, it’s not only an enduring piece of artistic innovation, it also connects Mohi back to those early years, observing her father’s efforts to recite kupu Māori (Māori words).

While her love of music began in her childhood, it was fostered at Hato Hohepa, St Joseph’s Māori Girls’ College, in the central suburbs of Napier.

“I just loved everything about it... Dame Georgina Kingi was the Māori teacher and the concert party tutor as we called it in those days.”

Mohi thrived at the school, embracing the exposure to “marae living” and the combinatio­n of waiata and language.

“We just sang all the time, twirled poi all the time in chapel and kapa haka practice.

“I really enjoyed the discipline of being in the kapa haka and learning from the older girls and the specifics we were taught about gentle singing rather than forceful singing.”

It was at “St Joe’s” that Mohi met fellow music hall of fame inductee, musician and broadcaste­r Moana Maniapoto.

Maniapoto was a couple of years ahead of Mohi and remembers her as “so sweet”, and she “sang like an angel, too”.

It’s been “school, music, film, reo, advocacy, whānau and the odd glass of Chardonnay” that have kept the pair within arm’s reach of each other ever since.

Maniapoto says they entered the commercial music scene at a time when “being Māori wasn’t exactly top of the pops. And te reo? Forget it. Consigned to the foreign language bin in record stores”.

“Hinewehi and I have just always been in each other’s lives… advocating in the background too, well away from the spotlight.

“That’s the boring stuff that requires tenacity and commitment because it’s frustratin­g and so incrementa­l you think you’re horizontal half the time, honestly. But Hinewehi hasn’t got as short a fuse as me, she’s a classy dame.”

With mentors like Māori language experts Tā Tīmoti Kāretu and the late Te Wharehuia Milroy, and music industry pioneers including the late Dalvanius Prime and Hirini Melbourne, it seems preordaine­d that Mohi would create a legacy of her own.

Kāretu, who also lent his expertise to Waiata/ Anthems, once described her as a conduit, and Mohi has no argument with that, happy for her voice to be an instrument for the cause.

“I still catch up with Tīmoti a lot because he lives in our hood and we have many laughs together.”

Mohi believes in the magic of music and its power to heal, and the Raukatauri Music Therapy Centre she and husband George Bradfield opened in Auckland in 2004 is testament to that.

“My daughter is the greatest teacher for our whānau,” Mohi says. “Her resilience, her serenity, is an inspiratio­n to us all. Hineraukat­auri puts everything into perspectiv­e.”

Hineraukat­auri, 28, was born with severe cerebral palsy and cannot walk or talk. Music plays a powerful role in their life together, Mohi says.

“The work that we’ve been doing through music therapy with inspiratio­n from my daughter Hineraukat­auri has been really important in my life.”

Music is able to connect people – across political lines or language barriers – in a way few other mediums can, Mohi says, and she has seen it work with her daughter.

The Raukatauri Music Therapy Trust, which is celebratin­g its 20th anniversar­y this year, is dedicated to providing music therapy for all ages, to aid the health and personal growth of people with identified emotional, intellectu­al, physical or social needs.

To mark the 20th anniversar­y, the charitable trust plans to bring the record for the world’s largest haka back to Aotearoa. Despite multiple attempts by Kiwis, France has held the record since 2014 when 4028 people took part.

On September 29, the trust will attempt to set the record straight, with a plan to get 10,00015,000 people to perform the haka on the grounds that helped to drive it to global fame – Eden Park.

Along with her mahi with the trust, Mohi has been working with APRA as manukura puoro Māori or director of Māori membership, supporting the developmen­t of waiata reo Māori and artists.

Back home in Hawke’s Bay, Mohi relishes time with her husband, George, and the six children and seven mokopuna they share.

“I always dreamed of being a mother, and my grandmothe­r taught me the importance of knowing whakapapa, and the sadness when we don’t.

“I’ve had amazing role models and mentors in my life. I owe it to them, and our mokopuna, to continue to pursue all that is possible in the world, to be proud and confident of who we are, and have pride and purpose.”

The gentle pioneer who has served as an instrument for change and transforma­tion not just within New Zealand music, but in public acceptance of te reo Māori, has surely earned a place in history as one of the great voices of our nation.

“I’ve had amazing role models and mentors in my life. I owe it to them, and our mokopuna, to continue to pursue all that is possible in the world, to be proud and confident of who we are, and have pride and purpose.”