My Favourite New Zealand Artist: Siavani on Upper Hutt Posse

For all of our comprehensive NZ Music Month coverage, head to the Rolling Stone New Zealand homepage. South Auckland songwriter and multi-disciplinary creative Siavani may have grown up singing in church, listening to the likes of Neil Finn, Annie Crummer, and Dave Dobbyn, but it was the hip hop beats of Upper Hutt Posse that really shook him to the core. Today, Siavani’s music is a mashup of hip hop, soul, reggae, and R&B, with uplifting tracks like “Love Look Easy” and “Think About It”. [embedded content] Looking back, Siavani recalls: As a toddler, the local music playing all the time at the family parties was the likes of Prince Tui Teka, The Yandell Sisters, Mark Williams and The Herbs.   But the catalyst moment for me as an individual music fan was seeing Upper Hutt Posse with “E Tu”, for the first time on an NZ music TV program called Radio with Pictures, it shook me to the core! I knew right then and there that I wanted to do hip hop. At 14 years old I was singing in the church so listening to Neil Finn, Annie Crummer, and Dave Dobbyn – all the NZ artists that related to...