Vibes from the Vault: A Brief Journey Through Aotearoa Hip-Hop
- Stu Paul
- 1 day ago
- 4 min read
Updated: 10 hours ago
FEATURE | PUORO O AOTEAROA / LOCAL MUSIC
Written by Stu Paul (he/him) | @stooey.peep | Contributing Writer
Hip-hop in Aotearoa has been a genre that has produced some heavyweights in the homegrown music scene over the past few decades. Originating in New York City during the early 1970s, hip-hop quickly spread around the globe and embedded itself in youth and counterculture scenes in locations as diverse as the UK, South Africa, Brazil, and Oceania - producing local sounds and artists that took up the mantle of hip-hop while infusing it with various elements of their own languages, slang, and culture.
As a music fan who came of age during the late 2000s and early 2010s, I am not going to pretend to have encyclopedic knowledge of Aotearoa hip-hop from its earliest beginnings in this land up to its current state. Rather, this piece is to highlight my own personal ‘who’s who’ of NZ hip-hop alumni who I believe are worth having some recognition and light shone on them and their music. Some of these artists will likely be known to the reader - others perhaps not. Let’s dive in.
Any history of hip-hop in Aotearoa would be incomplete without mentioning the OG godfather of NZ rap music: Scribe. Born Malo Ioane Luafutu in Christchurch in 1979, Scribe rose to fame at a time when the hip-hop genre and rapping as an art form were beginning to take centre stage in popular music. His debut album, The Crusader (2003), went quadruple-platinum in NZ and produced two solo number one singles - ‘Stand Up’ and ‘Dreaming’. Another track from the album to feature prominently on the radio at the time was the iconic ‘Not Many - The Remix!’ featuring two other artists hugely significant to Aotearoa hip-hop, Savage and Con Psy - the latter of whom would later pursue a solo career under his birth name, David Dallas.
David Dallas is an unsung hero of Aotearoa hip-hop. His career began as Con Psy, the rapper half of the duo Frontline, and he later embarked on a successful solo career with a string of critically well-received albums - ‘Something Awesome’, ‘The Rose Tint’, ‘Falling Into Place’, and ‘Hood Country Club’. He received a co-sign from Kanye West early in his career (which, before the man now known as ‘Ye’ devolved into such an awful and fascist piece of shit, actually meant something), and collaborated on songs with rap greats such as Freddie Gibbs (who would later be nominated for a Grammy for Best Rap Album in 2021) and Buckshot (founder of Duck Down Records), who would sign David Dallas to their label roster. In recent years, David Dallas has been a champion of pushing up-and-coming NZ artists into the limelight — with his Red Bull 64 Bars project, which highlighted the skills of local Auckland rappers such as DIRTY, Lukan Rai$ey, and Raiza Biza.
Raiza Biza is undoubtedly one of the most talented hip-hop artists that has emerged from Aotearoa in recent years. The Rwandan-New Zealand rapper was one of the first hip-hop artists of the African-New Zealand diaspora to gain prominence with their music in Aotearoa, with albums such as the Dream Something LP and the Day & Night EP being two of my own personal favourites from the rapper. His 2020 album Grand Opening, Grand Closing was nominated for Hip-Hop Album of the Year at the Aotearoa Music Awards in 2020, and over his decade-plus career, Raiza Biza has collaborated with many international hip-hop heavyweights including Oddisee, Black Milk, and Sampa the Great.
Of course, we cannot talk about Aotearoa hip-hop in 2025 without talking about Tom Scott. Considered by many to be the greatest rapper that NZ has produced, Tom Scott is a creative wordsmith and music-obsessed artist hailing from Avondale, Auckland, who has been making critically acclaimed and lyrically rich hip-hop for decades. Tom Scott has been the central figure of various rap groups such as Homebrew, @peace, Average Rap Band, and Avantdale Bowling Club. In 2019, Tom Scott’s jazz-infused Avantdale Bowling Club album by the same name won the Taite Music Prize, joining other successful NZ artists who have won the award, such as Lorde and Ladi6.
As a resident and long-time lurker of Tāmaki Makaurau, I have become aware of many talented local hip-hop artists who call the region home. Artists like Rizvan Tu’itahi and Silas Futura have come from deeply personal and hugely creative albums and artistic outputs that make me greatly proud of the local hip-hop music being produced by my own generation. Furthermore — the amount of creativity and talent in the women’s space of Aotearoa hip-hop is only growing exponentially - with artists such as JessB, CHAII, and Tei creating music that is not only pushing the boundaries of the hip-hop sound itself, but making space for artists in a genre that has historically had issues with misogyny and sexism.
As we look forward toward the end of 2025 and beyond — the future of the world looks pretty dire and scary, to be honest. But at the very least, the hip-hop scene in Aotearoa is healthy and thriving — upholding a strong creative tradition that is only being appreciated more and more by the country as time goes by. We can be sure that the hip-hop artists of Aotearoa will continue to produce music that brings peace and joy to us, the humble listeners. Thank you for listening to my ramble about music.
Artists mentioned and my favourite tracks:
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