(ATMOSPHERIC MUSIC) (CHOIR SINGS SAMOAN HYMN) www.able.co.nz Copyright Able 2022 (GENTLE HIP-HOP MUSIC) This beach, just in general, is someone where I go when I need to, like, just think. Well, for me, it's a healing place. But I've always gotta be near water. It calms me. And I think also being an Islander is probably why I love the beach, because I come from Samoa, and I come from the coast. Our village is right on the beach, so that's probably why. I just set you a beat. Can you play this for the boys? I sent this Samoan song to Infectiouss, and Infectiouss sent a beat back. I was like, 'Fuck, I love this!' Like, you know those ones? - Like, I don't know, but there's a beat here. - Yeah. And he made this. (CHOIR SINGS SAMOAN HYMN ON RECORDING) (HYMN PAUSES) (HYMN RESUMES) - (HIP-HOP BEAT DROPS) - Whoo! - Knowing who you are as a human ` your whakapapa, you know, your lineage, knowing who you are, where you came from, is very important to stable mental health. Because once you know ` you know, another cliche ` you know where you're from, then you know where you're going. - I think it is important, like identity ` trying to find the identity in our sound these days, especially with, like, the internet and shit. - Well, just hearing that, like, cos when I hear that, it gets me hype. You know? And I know it's my Samoan blood getting hype. You know? as well as the 'dumm...' But it's like... You know, those chants, it's in my blood to be, like, 'Yes!' You know? For young Maori and Pacific Islanders, I think there's a real gap with their identity. And I think, for my father, his experience as a Samoan in this country was so bad that he never taught us traditionally, because he felt it was a hindrance. - The dream of my parents coming over here for a better life for us. But, you know, they couldn't sustain that, because really they didn't know how to bring us up in a palagi environment. Like, we weren't allowed to speak English at home, because they couldn't understand English. - Immigrants coming to New Zealand and trying to fit in, and their parents just being too strict and really, you know, trying to live the good New Zealand lifestyle, but also being very fa'asamoa at home. - For me, growing up was like a foot in both worlds, so it was really, really hard, you know? - Unfortunately, that just meant that it was just a very sort of violent upbringing. And I think most Samoan immigrant families from that era have a very similar story. - The play The White Guitar is receiving critical acclaim in Christchurch. - A few years ago my brother and my father and I wrote a play about our life. It was called The White Guitar. (GROUP SING MOURNFULLY IN SAMOAN) - At first, Malo was reluctant to take part. - I wasn't game, because, you know, I'm a very private person. I didn't wanna be like, 'Hey, here's all our shit.' And I said to my brother, 'I don't wanna do this,' because I know the kind of ramifications that can come from putting your stuff out there. - We all went as family. I was just sitting there. I was a wreck. I was so shocked and... sad, you know? Um... It was so powerful. I just thought it was the most amazing play ever. - I'm watching myself beating up my boys, cos they're telling the story. I'm watching myself being a real bad dad. - I think he never quite realised the magnitude of his actions. And when he's seen us reliving the scenes, tears are coming to his eyes, like, through rehearsals. And we'd finish, and he'd go, 'I never knew.' - If you saw White Guitar, you would have seen how immigration and... and shame was a big part of the things that.... then spiralled into other stuff, like crime and addiction. But also racism ` the way we get treated. - Now, let me just say that my father, he came here from Samoa, and he was in Grey Lynn, you know, in those early days. And he became a ward of state at 12 years old. He spent his whole... from 12 to 21 under care of the system. And that system is the system that sexually abused them, that physically abused them. The most heinous things happened to these children, to my father, who was a boy. So I don't wanna paint my father as this monster. Even though he was a monster, he... was created a monster. He wasn't born one. - Like myself and some of my other... cousins and other young Samoans that went through the kind of stuff that we went through in the early '60s and late '50s, and how we turned out is... is something that I carried around with me for a long time. Real dark, angry, little me. - Don't worry, son. One day God will bring you your own white guitar. - The play was an amazing success. We were supposed to take it to New York. We got an Australian tour. And I quit. I quit it. I said, 'I can't do it.' Because after that, I just went heavy into drugs. All these things that I'd suppressed in my life with music, you know, and distractions, all these things I'd bottled up as a kid all of a sudden were brought to the surface, and we'd opened up all these boxes with all these demons, and they were all there, and I didn't know what to do with them. - That was kind of the worst of the worst time for us, and where the level of his addiction was at. When he first started kind of disappearing for long periods of time, Mum had said that, 'Oh, he's working on something.' But after a while, it kind of got normal. - The periods grew longer and longer between times we seen him. We didn't want to ask questions, really, to upset our parents. - TAYLOR: But I did get kind of angry when he would leave for long periods of time, especially when Mum started working night shifts. - I was really at the end of how much I could take, as a person. - You know, what my mum went through, it's hard, eh? (SIGHS) But... (POIGNANT MUSIC) - For me, the more damaging the behaviour became, the more I had to protect my kids and my family. - My wife left me, with my children, and I was a broken-hearted man. You know, to me, family is everything. So when I lost my family, I stopped giving a fuck. I didn't give a fuck about anything. - I had tried every avenue. I had tried family support and family talking to him. I had tried psychologists, and I'd taken him to the hospital several times. I'd taken him to the doctor. I'd tried everything. I tried to get him into rehab. So jail was kind of the end of that. Jail was, for me,... going to be... something that I felt like he needed. - Hip-hop artist Scribe is now facing court action of a domestic nature, delaying his sentencing today for a drugs conviction. - I was charged with assault on a female, being my partner at the time. For the record, I'd never hit her, and that came out in our trial. And her reasons behind her lying about that was that she was really scared for me, and where my addiction was taking me. - He was never, um, physical. Um, yeah, if anything, I was quite physical with him, just out of frustration. But, yeah, I just... I ended up just feeling like I was at a loss where to get help. And so I did seek a protection order. Yeah, and I just really felt like that was my only option. Which is sad, because... there should be other options than trying to put someone away. (WOMAN LAUGHS) # The baddest on the beat. Oh! (BROODING HIP-HOP MUSIC) I wanna give a shout-out to my probation officer right now. I just finished my intensive supervision. Shout-out to my lawyer. Shout-out to everybody in the Matai wing at CMP. Paparua Prison, you know what's up. I told you when I get out what's up. They put me in a high-security ring. I met a couple of guys who had been in there for 22 years. They hadn't even eaten Burger King. They were... had been there since they were 18 years old, which made me realise how lucky I was, because I was only gonna be there a few months. You know, understand, we're spending 22 hours of the day locked in a room, every day. I realised that this isn't the life for me. I also realised that, yeah, my dad had done time, my brother, but that's not my life, and that I shouldn't be there. Um, also realised, you know, seeing all these broken men, just how, like, sad it is that jail is the solution. - People who... suffer from addiction, they need help, they don't need jail. Jail's not gonna do anything. They need help to get well. - # OK. # I've been reporting to police three times a week. # And today is Friday, and it's jail time if I'm late. # But I ain't tryna breach bail. # Even if I seek jail. # At my court date, I'll be straight-faced. # No frail. # Mind stays on it so it's a good fight. # Uh! # But as I made it up from the bottom, fresh out of the hood life. # Uh! # What the fuck, did you think I forgot it? # What, you think I forgot it? # What, you think I forgot him? # I'll never forget. When I see that motherfucker, I got him! # - I think it would have been very difficult for both Malo and Tenari to have not gone down the road that they've gone down in their lives, you know. - And I'm still working through things, and I guess he is too. Those negative things ` how to put those things that don't serve us to the side, and I think, yeah, it's a daily thing you go through, and it's something we'll battle... we take to the grave, those battles. - If it wasn't for jail, if it wasn't for all that court shit, if it wasn't for the media, you know, just doing me the way they did, I probably wouldn't have found the strength to fight back. I wouldn't have found the strength to fight for my life, to prove people wrong about me, to not let those stories you saw in the paper...