Aotearoa's finest Polynesian musicians lend their talents to the soundtrack of Panthers - a new six-part drama series about the rise of the activist group Polynesian Panthers in the 1970s.
Producers Diggy Dupé, choicevaughan and Troy Kingi worked closely with Panthers creators Tom Hern and Halaifonua Finau to develop the album's unique sound.
Diggy and Choice chat to Jesse Mulligan about how it came together.
Diggy Dupe and choicevaughn produce Panthers soundtrack Photo: supplied
Robert Muldoon Photo: Wikicommons
Choice says he was disturbed, then impressed, when he first heard Diggy rapping as former NZ prime minister Robert Muldoon on the Panthers soundtrack. (On a track called The Villain, Diggy points out the shortcomings of Polynesian people from Muldoon's perspective.)
"You did such a good job on it. I've heard these talking points before from people from different parts of New Zealand and it was convincing."
Growing up in a Niuean family in Auckland, Diggy says he only vaguely knew of the Panthers movement before working on the soundtrack.
To write from Robert Muldoon's perspective on 'The Villain', he researched the former National Party leader's motivations and how he viewed New Zealand's Pacific Island communities.
"I kind of play it like [Muldoon is saying] 'these guys are hypocrites' and I point out the flaws that we have."
Panthers' creators Tom Hern and Nua Finau wanted Muldoon (who Hern has described as the "arch-villain" of the series) to have a theme song that portrayed him like a mob boss or a mafia boss, Diggy says.
"[Muldoon] wedges that little divide and creates a splinter in [Pasifika] unity. And that's how it breeds that little doubt that you have. It's politics, man. That's how it works."
Rapping from someone else's perspective for the first time felt like "a breath of fresh air", he says. (Diggy also raps as the character King Kong.)
"With these characters, they're so complex that I was able to write about things that I wouldn't necessarily write about. I was kind of like acting but just with music. It was real fun, aye.'
Hern and Finau wanted Panthers to have a powerful musical element and the soundtrack was always intended to stand alone as an album, Choice says.
It felt important to include both music the actual Panthers were listening to in the '70s (such as Jimi Hendrix) and also Polynesian artists of today - both those who are up-and-coming and "OGs" such as Scribe and Ladi6 who are also "Panther cubs" (children of Panthers members).
"We wanted to tie that lineage to this next wave of talent coming through and make that a really big part of the album."
Multi-award-winning Māori musician Troy Kingi performs on the album under the alias P Smith, Choice says.
"He's an alien, man. He recorded into a cell phone him singing and playing guitar. Then he took it to the studio, showed his band, and they heard it once and played it all out and recorded it. Incredible."
Choice and Troy were both keen to work with Ranuimarz - "a young hearty activist from Ranui" - who came into the studio rapping while holding his 18-month-old son.
"The way that he raps, he sounds like the second coming of Tupac [Shakur] in terms of the energy, his flow, his delivery, the angle that he's coming from."
