Te Herenga Waka’s Rodger Fox, who has been described as ‘New Zealand’s Godfather of jazz’, established his eponymous Big Band in 1973. This year the Te Kōkī—New Zealand School of Music lecturer is collaborating with APRA Silver Scroll winner Bill Urale (known by his stage name King Kapisi) on the Brotherman Project, which reworks ten of the rapper’s original hip hop tracks into big band jazz arrangements.
Dr Fox has a history of interesting—and at times unexpected—musical collaborations. “I’ve interpreted the poetry of Hone Tuwhare; reimagined the music of Sir Dave Dobbyn; I’ve worked with classical pianist Michael Houston; and also collaborated with Simon O’Neill, the Wagnerian opera singer,” he explains. “So I’ve always had a bent to do this sort of thing as a way of exposing big band music and jazz to a wider audience.”
It was through Dr Fox’s outreach work and involvement with the not-for-profit community organisation Youthtown—which along with Te Herenga Waka sponsors a national competition for high school jazz bands—that Dr Fox got to know King Kapisi, who is a Youthtown mentor and ambassador.
“I’d read an article saying that 2023 is the 50th anniversary of hip hop—it’s also the 50th year of the Rodger Fox Big Band,” he explains. “My brain clicked, and I laid it on King Kapisi—he was coming to Wellington, so we met for a coffee in the Hunter Lounge and the whole thing came together. I’d researched his material and gave him a shortlist of his songs that I thought could be adapted for a big band. We culled it down to 10 and then got to work getting the arrangements done.”
The musical arrangements were done by Dr Fox along with a who’s who of the local and international jazz scene, including European composer Thomas Faure, and renowned American arranger Matt Harris. Te Kōkī teaching staff Daniel Hayles and Bryn van Vliet also did some arrangements, and all ten songs were recorded at Te Kōkī, under the supervision of technician Richard Caigou. The album will be released in the first week of October.
“Taking that rap/hip hop style of music and bringing it into a big band jazz format while trying to retain the essence and vitality of King Kapisi’s music was a real challenge,” says Dr Fox. “But there’s more crossover between the genres than many people might think—many earlier hip hop artists tended to draw a lot from the jazz repertoire, using samples from old recordings, for example. And King Kapisi has always had one or two jazz players in his own band, so there has always been that influence there.”
King Kapisi says it’s been a treat to return to his hometown of Wellington to work on the project. “I wasn’t a student there but I’ve had a long relationship with the University—I love that place and it holds so many good memories for me, including playing gigs on campus, hosting a RadioActive show, recording at the School of Music, and playing basketball.”
Growing up in Te Whanganui-a-Tara, King Kapisi had heard about Rodger Fox and his band. “It wasn’t until I got to know him through this project that I understood how much of a star he really is. Rodger is a historian of jazz music, as well as all of Aotearoa’s music, so when he picks me up from the airport and I take the opportunity to ask him questions—he has deep knowledge about everything from Dalvanius Prime and the Yandall Sisters, through to more recent artists. Rodger’s like a big brother to me—I love that guy, he’s a legend.”
King Kapisi says his rearranged songs sound amazing. “It’s beautiful to hear the melodies I created in another format—I originally composed most of them using a keyboard, so listening to them being played on brass instruments by a 19-piece big band is incredible.”
The Brotherman Project, featuring guest vocalist Erna Ferry, will be heading on a tour of the South Island, starting in Queenstown on October 19 and culminating in a show at the Michael Fowler Centre in Wellington on October 27, as part of Wellington Jazz Festival. More information and tickets are available here. Plans are underway for further concert dates across the North Island later this year.
Dr Fox says while the Brotherman Project is pushing the envelope musically, he is confident the collaboration will demonstrate to jazz fans the beauty of hip hop, and vice versa.
“It’s been really encouraging for me, because when you say ‘rap’ or ‘hip hop’, a certain age group of people immediately have pre-conceived ideas about what that means—usually profanity, booty-shaking, that sort of thing. But that’s a tiny part of rap and hip hop—it’s a genre where many of the artists are actually very socially aware. King Kapisi’s lyrics are based around his Samoan culture and language, and his music is distinctly from this place. So when we played these arrangements at a one-off show in September, some of the older jazz fans who turned up to the concert were like, ‘why haven’t we been listening to this stuff earlier?’ It was great.”