Urban Pasifika

Urban Pasifika
Stylistic origins	New Zealand reggae hip hop funk pop rock jazz soul reggae folk
Cultural origins	Late 1980s, South Auckland
Typical instruments	Vocals Spanish guitar turntables drum machine drums keyboard sampler bass guitar guitar synthesizer
Other topics
Underground hip hop Turntablism Alternative music

Urban Pasifika (also known as Urban Pacific and Urban Pacifika) is a New Zealand subgenre of hip hop, that developed primarily among Pasifika New Zealanders in South Auckland. Drawn from alternative hip hop and R&B influences, it was quickly blended with Pacific Island or Māori instrumentation and traditional songwriting (such as ukulele samples) and singing and rapping in a variety of Polynesian languages, such as Māori, Samoan, Niuean and Tongan. The genre's genesis in the 1980s blossomed into a unique, globally enrapturing cultural scene in its homeland of Auckland, especially in the next decade. Urban Pasifika is one of the most popular music genres to arise from New Zealand, and helped cement Auckland's reputation on the world stage as a major cultural centre, and the most ethnically Polynesian city in the world.^[1]

It originated within the Pasifika community in Auckland, specifically its heavily Polynesian southern suburbs; the genre quickly gained traction, with a major scene in Wellington's suburbs of Lyall Bay, Newtown, Aro Valley and Te Aro within its Cuba Precinct (such as Fat Freddy's Drop, King Kapisi and Upper Hutt Posse) and, to a lesser extent, Christchurch (with the globally successful rapper Scribe). Two of the best known examples of the genre are In The Neighbourhood by the duo Sisters Underground, released in 1994, and OMC's How Bizarre and On The Run, the former of which became a smash hit worldwide, topping the charts in multiple countries. The 1990s were the heyday for Urban Pasifika artists, and icons of the genre went on to become legends of New Zealand music and within the greater New Zealand diaspora.^[2]