Bigger Than Just Fashion

King Kapisi shirtless in the video for the 1999 single"Subcranium Feeling," bubbles floating from his mouth as he raps underwater in front of blue and red floral 'ie lavalava. An everyday, around the house item of Polynesian clothing providing the backdrop for one of the most vivid and iconic images of New Zealand hip-hop.

"Just putting Samoan identity into it, I thought that was cool," says David Dallas, also referencing Kapisi's "Reverse Resistance" as a memorable style moment.

"He flexed the 'ie like he was proud to have it part of his culture", says Homebrew's Tom Scott, "So maybe that influenced people on a deeper level than just fashion."

Our hip-hop style, like much of our hip-hop culture, has always come from the US. It's what we do with it once it gets here, our little localised touches of flair, that make it ours.

Andy Murnane, the co-founder of record and clothing label Dawn Raid Entertainment—talking about the dawn raids on mostly Samoan and Tongan homes for allegedly overstaying in the country—said they took the same ethos from US labels like Cross Colours, turning something negative into a positive. Identity pride, Polynesian culture mixed with street culture.

"The heaviest thing for the South Auckland scene would have been LA culture. LA and South Auckland are like sister cities because of the Polynesian communities in both cities. Ben Davis, Dickies, Carhartt, those were our first staple outfits. Simple lines, simple colours but bold statements, like Raiders and Los Angeles Kings. The Dawn Raid logo is actually made up of a famous LA font."

David Dallas, who lives and grew up just down the road from the Ōtara Flea Market, where the Dawn Raid label first began selling their printed tees knew about the clothing label, before the music.

"I knew about Cocoland t-shirts, because it was Timbaland, just American shit flipped with a local spin. I always liked those Cocoland tees, if I saw one now, I'd get one."

According to Murnane, The Ōtara Flea Market is where you went when you wanted to look fly, but were short of resources. It was also the scene for another notable pioneering hip-hop video, Lost Tribe's "Summer In The Winter."

"Guys like Lost Tribe had their own style, a Poly influence. Johnny Sagala wore chatter rings around his neck for fucks sake," says Dallas.

For Tom Scott, perhaps his equivalent of the flea market—to ball on a budget—was second-hand store Save Mart.

"At that time we were all cutting our jeans because we couldn't afford Phat Farm jean shorts. We'd rock whatever we got from Save Mart, like some old flannel or Ralph Lauren shirt from New Lynn Save Mart."

Dam Native was another influential artist, "I remember seeing the Dam Native Horrified One video, thinking those dudes looked awesome…they had a lot of the gears American rappers of the time were wearing, but Danny from Dam Native wore his hair out the same as my mates did, plus he'd be holding a taiaha" says Dallas. "It had the markings of American hip-hop, but enough local signifiers to make it like, this is ours."

Also in the Horified video is Teremoana Rapley, her hair in bantu knots, wearing a shell necklace, baggy overalls and an over-sized leather jacket.

"Teremoana Rapley is the God," says musician and writer Coco Solid. "She's got really, really iconic style. I'll see videos of her through various projects, Upper Hutt Posse or Moana and the Moahunters and then stuff with Che Fu and she always has the best style. Everything looks good on her, whether it's really baggy jeans dragging on the ground or a totally tapered tapa dress. She has that style."

Coco Solid's style coming up was a little more out of left field, "I was inspired from anything from the Black Panthers to Donna Awatere in her prime. I really liked that awkward meshing of raver, Suzy Cato kind of sportswear—Kozmik with a K. When I first started performing, for me, it was just a really cool way to mesh all the aesthetics that I thought were cool, and what I thought was really funny as well."

The Suzy Cato phase was a very brief, but powerful phase, she says, but she was always keeping an eye on "that catwalk shit, not that I could ever afford anything, I always liked that kind of Versace, early 90s insufferable opulence thing."

Fashion for her has always been used as a way of asserting sovereignty, autonomy, "you can't control what I bring to the situation."

"You know the kind of artist leverage we have, you'll find yourself in really surreal influence situations often. You'll have a real grounded way of bringing our neighbourhood, or your attitude, or your kind of cultural stability through what you're wearing."

Now, she says she lets her work do the heavy lifting, "Especially if you're a woman, people aren't really listening to you at first. I started to feel like as I began to get more and more listened to, I didn't have to aesthetically invest in what I was wearing so much. I let the artistic aesthetic, I let the words speak for me."

For David Dallas, his style hasn't evolved so much, "I don't wear 5XL t-shirts anymore, but I've always liked clean, basic things. West Coast rap is still the style in the hood…even if you go out to small town NZ, it's still about that because West Coast rap had such an impact here."

But, he says, sports also plays a role, "I don't think at any point dudes overseas were wearing rugby socks and jandals, whereas rappers here do."

"There's the Mexican influence with the basketball socks pulled up," says Murnane, "but over here we play rugby and league, so you're adapting. You're taking your influence, then you're re-fitting it to your community."

Socks were also a way for Tom Scott to proudly rep Avondale, "I rocked the gold top socks everywhere we went because when I was growing up it was real fly to have these socks from Farmers. We'd rack them and wear them high with Puma Suedes or chucks."

His style is also largely unchanged; "I don't wear a T-shirt on my head like a du-rag anymore."

"I'm sure we were all trying to be like our heroes at that time, trying to wear the same cap as Che Fu in the 'Scene 3' video," Scott says. But it was the way those artists made us feel about ourselves that was more important, "Like the way Scribe was just rocking some rugged hoodie made us feel like there was a reason we were shopping at Save Mart, like it was normal."

Dam Native flexing with the tokotoko (Māori walking stick) was a statement bigger than the newest pair of jeans, "I think they were influencing us a little bit deeper than that. It was the influence of their culture that they were breathing into it."

Follow Leilani on Twitter, and see more of her writing on her website Lani Says. 

Nov 21 - 27 is NOISEY New Zealand Hip-Hop Week. Head here for more NZ hip-hop content.