- RAPS: # Like this. Like this. Like this. - (WOMAN LAUGHS) - # How many dudes you know roll like this? How many dudes you know flow like this? # If any. Not many. If any. # How many dudes you know got the skills to go and rock a show like this? # Uh-uh, uh-uh, I don't know anybody. # This is so exclusive for you to fuckin' listen to this right now. This shit's not gonna come out for another three months. I shouldn't even be playing it; I'm just a show-off. Nah. (GENTLE MUSIC) - He was always this magnetic personality, even in primary school. We're a year and a half apart, so we were always in school together. - ENGLISH ACCENT: Hey, yo! Hey, yo! New Zealand styles. Yeah! - He was a singer. He was an actor. He was, you know, my hero. # Hip hop, you the love of my life. It's like, oh, sounds so nice. # Hip-hop, you the love of my life. It's like... # Ooh, I don't really know if that's really right, but... - Play the beat, Pete, please. # It sounds so nice. # Hip-hop, you the love of mine. # - # Hip-hop, you the love of my life. # BOTH SING: # Sounds so nice. # - Just lower, you mean? - Nah, mine's low, but to you, it's not as low as... - # Oh, sounds so nice and you're the love of mine. You're the love of mine. # Oh, sounds so nice and you're the love of mine. # You're the love of mine. - RAPS: # I heard about it back in '86 # when I went to school with Voodoo Child, Spex fam' and Ladi-6. # This one's done by Spex. Spex is Ladi6's older sister. - What more can you say? She's great. Yes, ma'am. I knew he had something. I guess everyone calls it the X factor. - My brother told me, you know, he wanted to be a rapper and that. I don't think I sniggered, bro. I just thought, 'Well,... 'not gonna happen.' - It's just him being in love with music. You could just tell there was a passion for it. - And he just had all this charisma, stage presence. His raps were really good. Like, his rhymes were on. - RAPS: # So just for you I said down to write this song phat. # - We met, I think, like, 22 years ago or something like that ` '99, young guys. - This is, fuckin', my boys ` Ali, Sir-Vere and Shan. - The first time I heard Scribe perform, and I just remember being frozen in space there for a moment, just hearing him and hearing his rhyme. - Straight away, he just had this command of the stage, a stage presence and a delivery that cut through. - This kid was supremely talented and had an absolute gift. - We'd all driven down to Dunedin to hook up with DJ Shan and play a gig at Bath Street, and P-Money pulls out a tape and says, 'Yo, I make beats'. And we were like` Cos he was the New Zealand DMC champ at the time. And we're like, 'What?!' - I knew I needed a partner to do this music with, cos I had the music, but I didn't have the voice. And so I did not` In my wildest dreams did I ever think I was gonna meet the next greatest New Zealand rapper in Christchurch. - I'm gonna head down to Real Groovy, do an in-store for P-Money's album. Check it out. Sign some autographs, smile, kiss some babies, try and help sell` make some more units. But watch out, cos... - I brought him in the studio and was like, 'OK, what do you got?' He's like, 'Oh, that beat, that slow one you had ` that one, and then that rock one.' I was like, 'OK, cool. Which one you wanna do first?' He said, 'Um, do the rock one.' And then we did Stand Up. - My favourite track gotta say is the new rock and roll shit. This is gonna be the first single and the first video. - Yeah, yeah, we're filming the video for the for the new Scribe single on Wednesday. All of you people are invited to be in it, but you have to do one thing ` you have to email scribevideo@hotmail.com. - (EXCLAIMS) Here we go ` first scene. This is the take. I'm gonna do it. - Just go hard. We'll shoot this once, so just fuckin' enjoy it. - All right, man. All right. - 100%. (SCRIBE'S 'STAND UP' PLAYS, PEOPLE CHEER) RAPS: # We can not stop now. # New Zealand hip-hop, stand the fuck up, we got it locked down. # I'm ready to rock, ready to roll. I am ready to go. # Y'all ready to flow? (CHEERING, LAUGHTER) - I reckon it's gonna bad, eh, yeah. Brah, I can't wait for his album. Oh man, this is just the start. - The Crusader is coming! - The Crusader's coming, man. - RAPS: # I thought I told y'all. We can not stop now. # New Zealand hip-hop, stand the fuck up, we got it locked down. # - Reaching number one with his first solo single, rising star MC Scribe has just released his new album. - The Crusader jump, that was untouchable kind of shit. I don't think we've seen another hip-hop artist come out like that. - Scribe and P-Money! (CHEERING, APPLAUSE) - The first artist who would get the number one single and number one album at the same time and hold the record for it. - RAPS: # I'm still writing, I'm still fighting, and we can't turn back now, cos we came so far. # - I just remember being so proud and knew he was gonna be a star. - Scribe ` The Crusader. - Let's keep hip-hop in the heart, yo. Basically, hip-hop is the voice of the next generation. - New Zealand hip-hop took a long time to get to where it is today, and the guy that really fast-tracked it was Scribe. - He's the shining star of the New Zealand music scene at the moment. - I don't think New Zealand's ever seen anything like this before. I'm so overwhelmed that the day has come and that people won't laugh when I'm a rapper. - Hip-hop artist Scribe is now facing court action of a domestic nature, delaying his sentencing today for a drugs conviction. - I'm not... the young man filled with optimism that wrote Dreaming and Not Many. I've been to hell. I've fuckin' been to jail. I've been on the edge of darkness and wanting to end my life. - Yeah, it was scary to watch him go through what he was going through and watch it from a distance and... you know, we lost contact, I guess, for a good amount of time. - RAPS: # ...fame, I never changed. Yeah, I'm certain. # Couldn't sell my soul. That's why I'm still the same person. # Yeah, see me walk away once I had my baby girl. # To tell the truth, my time with her, I wouldn't trade that for the world. # And I believe in God. He's the man to me, for real. # Without him, I doubt that I would even be here still, # cos I was on a path to destruction on that highway to hell, # but only those who walked my road can really tell. # But don't worry 'bout a damn thing. # Whoo! Hey. It had been over a decade since P-Money and I have been in the studio together, because, when I was a drug addict, I cut all my healthy relationships. - It does feel like an appropriate time to have that conversation about making new music and to just get in the studio, create some things or just throw some ideas back and forth and just have some fun with it. - TRACK, RAPS: # ...can really tell. But don't you worry 'bout a damn thing. # I believe this is gonna be my last album. I've really put, like, the last 10 years of my life into this album. The stories and experiences that I've had, the heartbreak that I've felt, all the things that I've been through is in this album. - It's amazing. I've seen a hunger in him that, maybe, he had put on hold for a little bit. - TRACK, RAPS: # Someone call my squad. Dirty Records, that's my team. # I waited since the day I got expelled from Western Springs back when I was 17. # Now I'm 'bout to get them dreams, in a lab, cooking songs up like it's methamphetamine. # - So, I think it was P-Money that hit me up and said that Scribe had some new music that he wanted to share, and that it was just gonna be, like me, Melo and Tenei. - Tenei, G! He just pulled that beat out yesterday ` easy! - Me coming in here, sitting down and just watching Scribe and P-Money working, just like back 20 years ago. - Yeah, nice bro. Wicked. That's gonna be good when you get the rest of it on there, eh. - Yeah, I got another verse for that, so we'll lay that after this. - Yep. - I'm like a fly on the wall, just observing, just admiring and just kinda soaking up game from these guys. (HIP-HOP BEAT PLAYS) - Seeing him happy again and excited about music is great. I feel like he's got a lot to say. Like, he's just the creative dude, and he's good at interpreting his life into song. - Yeah, I like that. - Good meeting ya, G. The kings! Kings and Vince have come through. It's really been a really enjoyable experience for both Pete and I getting fresh perspectives to what the next generation` how their mind works. - Yeah, man. To be called up to even be a part of something like this with Scribe and Pete, Vince, I have to go humble myself after, you know, make sure that I'm grounded, you know? They're the dudes. - TRACK: # What I wanna know. # - That's my son. - What? - That's my son. - That's his boy singing. - Whoa. (SINGING CONTINUES ON TRACK) That's probably the best thing I love about him in that he's just unapologetic. He knows what he wants, but he also has a side of him that's actually quite vulnerable and soft. - Bro, check this. I'll play it. You know that song I did, the girl one? Yeah, I'll P-Money's one. - TRACK, RAPS: # I can just say some things, cos I feel... # It's real new; I just wrote it, like, last week, put it down. Still got heaps of work to do, but that's why I listen to it all the time, trying to figure it out. - SOFTLY: # ...more than anyone could tell you. # More than every friend. # I've set my eyes on lovin' you that way. # Be my lady. I always felt like I didn't deserve this, that... I'm shit. (SNIFFLES) So I set out to destroy Scribe, destroy people's image of me. - Kia ora, good evening. The rapper known as Scribe is due to appear in a Wellington court tomorrow, accused of drugs and arms offences. - What are you gonna plead? - Is there anything you wanna say before you head into court this afternoon? - SIMON DALLOW: The chart-topping hip-hop star's battle with addiction has never been secret ` his family conceding he's had his troubles. - That's why I didn't want them to get into the entertainment industry, you know? I knew it was going to happen, you know? It was just a matter of time. - People were, you know, giving him stuff all the time, and he was just taking it, and it did become a real worry. - Yeah, things just went off the rails, man. It was, like, at a certain point, it was hard to get back on track. Yeah, I still have a lot of issues. (CHUCKLES) Like, I'd get these` through the years, get these calls, like, 'You wanna do a Scribe show?' And sometimes I'd say no. - Make some noise for P-Money here! (CHEERING, APPLAUSE) - I don't know what version of Scribe's gonna turn up at the show. Is he gonna be really high or is he gonna be intoxicated? Is he going to be aggressive? Is he gonna be just, like, difficult? Is he going to do something crazy that, you know, makes me uncomfortable? I don't know.