Tāmaki Makaurau-based Kiko is a 5 piece Māori rock band deservedly making huge waves across this country. Made up of Rewi McLay (Ngāti Kahu/Ngāti Hine on guitar and vocals), Lukas Wharekura (Ngāti Kahungunu keyboards, BVs and guitar), Kara Gordon (Ngāi Te Rangi on guitar), Phillip Peters (Whānau a Apanui and Rangitāne, on the drums) and Windon Bradfield (bass), these guys sing in Te Reo and bring us compelling harmonies and melodies that scream out for indigenous arts and culture.

A gritty You Tube video depicts the band driving through a near-future war zone in Aotearoa. With the divisive actions of our current government, this could be a worryingly accurate prediction. The melody of the number is intense and as mentioned, compelling. It’s a storyteller’s melody. Emotive, laced with sadness and angst. It fits the You Tube track utterly, so very well done to video directors Lukas (from the band) and Francis Baker. The video has some great cinematography and make-up, despite being virtually all B & W. There’s also a couple of very well behaved doggos in it, I think named Koda and Hazel.

It’s vital beyond all degree of verbal messaging right now for us to stand together and celebrate, communicate and enhance the message of togetherness with our Māori brothers and sisters. We are seeing an external attack on their very identity, a challenge to their right to call themselves Māori and identify as such. This stems from a coordinated attempt to remove their Rangatiratanga over the lands, and from an ignorance as to what that actually means at a core level. Preying on the lack of knowledge of many, this external attack is saying that Tino Rangatiratanga is a threat to egalitarianism and equity in these lands – when in fact Tino Rangatiratanga is what has defended egalitarianism and equity in these lands since 1840. This is within the message of the band, of the song, of the video, and is one I learned through my own research twenty years ago – so if I, as a pinky-white skinned Welsh immigrant can find this out just by going looking where the information is kept, nobody should have an excuse for not knowing it. It’s in the National Library; you’re allowed to ask to look it up. Get on it! This band has my complete endorsement for the meanings and requests within this song.

Not just that but it’s a bloody good song too. The vocals are in Te Reo, and are delivered in a rock-centric tenor, backed by some wonderfully layered harmonies. The guitars are really chunky and full-throated, and backed by a deep, ominous bottom end, at a slightly quicker than middle tempo. Topping off are the artfully placed and well composed keys. It’s a very well constructed song orchestrally and structurally. Kudos to the band and to Nathan Judd of Rageous Records for the studio work.

This is an easily listened-to song. While all the messages and dystopian visuals are present, it’s also very easy on the ear. Thanks in no small part of course to the calibre of the band members, but the composition of a song is vital, and this flows with an ease that makes it a definite competitor for commercial radio. It should do anyway, so I hope it’s getting that kind of support. I hope Waatea Music is pushing them overseas, where Indigenous Peoples are waking up everywhere. Why can’t these islands be the beacon of wisdom and openness that results in all Indigenous Peoples get to celebrate their identities unchallenged by colonialism?

Keep this stuff up. This is Culture being celebrated and saying a big naughty two word phrase to those who would see them into the history books. In Wales we say Yma O Hyd. In Te Reo it’s Kei Konei Tonu.