Aotearoa Hip Hop: The Music, The People, The History · rova | Original

EP10 - Scribe & Dei Hamo

·1 hr 15 min·5 clips

Scribe explains his music is about making listeners who've experienced trauma like sexual abuse feel seen and believed.

Start with the single. P Money gets the tip from Omega B at Real Groovy Records: Stand Up is moving, but buyers keep asking for the other track. That is the hinge. Scribe's rise is there in the background, but the episode slips from chart heat into the smaller rooms where the next wave is getting made. Back to Breaking Wreck. Syphonetic shrugs it off a little, calling the crew young and unprofessional, while the narrator keeps pointing back to what came out of it. Haz Beats remembers the hard beats and raw raps pulling him in, even when the words did not fully land. That rawness matters here. Breaking Wreck becomes the connection point between scenes, producers, DJs, and MCs still learning what the industry even was. Then Frontline starts to take shape. Nick McLaren, coming out of DJ battles and making beats on an MPC, links with David Dallas through Syphonetic. They had crossed paths before, when Dave was the skating university customer at One Project on Central Auckland's High Street and Nick was working the store and making beats. In 2003, the songs were there. The question was what to do next and how to get the music out. The tape stays close to the people who lived it: shops, demos, road gigs, half-plans. By the end, Savage is nearing Swing, the Boost Mobile hookup tours are on the horizon, and Open Souls are quietly feeding the next generation, including Tom Scott.

As heard by us

A practical clue opens into a wider, looser portrait of the scene.

This episode keeps Scribe's rise at the center, following how Stand Up and Not Many pushed him toward the commercial break he had long earned.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

You want the "Not Many" story told from the room where it actually moved.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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