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

EP9 - Che Fu, Nesian Mystik & P-Money

·1 hr 17 min·5 clips

Tom Scott argues that Shea Fu isn't beyond hip-hop—he is the god of it, embodying the culture completely.

Beat Merchants is the doorway. The host goes back to central Auckland before the breakout years, when record shops, mixtapes, and weekly fixes kept the scene fed. George Ash keeps coming around. After building Universal Music New Zealand and moving to Sydney, he nudges DJ Severe toward an official mixtape series. That push becomes Major Flavours. One yes, and suddenly the next few doors start opening. At the Hip Hop Summit, paper matters. A first issue gets printed, packed into bags, and handed to people who look tied to hip hop. The pioneers get their stories held up. B-boying, graffiti, DJing, and MCs all belong to the same memory. Then Wellington shows up heavy. Back to Basics are there, but the Foot Soldiers have the live reputation. Their EP has just landed. Styles, Deliveries, Flows puts the set on record, and Flows feels like every bar has a cost. Scribe changes the weather. The host calls him the most important New Zealand rapper ever, and the stage moment nearly swallows the room. David Dallas is in the crowd, still Kansai, watching the rain and knowing he needs to pay attention. P-Money's Big Things sits close by. By the end, studio pressure, New York connections, and Dei Hamo's post-Crusader return all feel connected.

As heard by us

A clear, inside-the-room look at Aotearoa hip-hop's breakout years.

The episode maps early-2000s Aotearoa hip-hop as a scene still shifting under its own momentum, with DJ Severe moving from Beat Merchants and the Severe Punishment bootlegs into the Major Flavours mix CDs and then the Hip Hop Summit.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

For the mixtape-to-mainstage story of Aotearoa hip-hop's breakout years, start here.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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