etnobofin

Well, it’s New Zealand Music Month again. A good excuse to dig up this old classic from 1984: Poi E by the Patea Maori Club.

It’s probably the first pop song I remember: kids in the school playground would run around singing and shouting “Taku poi porotiti, taku poi e!“. We didn’t know what the lyrics meant, but it sure made a change from playing Ewoks and Stormtroopers.

Poi E sounds like no other pop song before or since. Everything about the song and the video is awesome – fusing poi dance with breakdance, mixing kapa haka with MPC beats, and providing a 16mm picture into New Zealand at a transitional time in its history. Magic.