Pātea Māori Club
Pātea Māori Club | |
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| Origin | Pātea, South Taranaki, New Zealand |
| Genres | Māori music, pop, hip hop |
| Years active | 1967–present |
| Labels | Maui Records, Warner Music, Jayrem Records |
| Members |
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| Past members |
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| Website | The Pātea Māori Club on Facebook |
Pātea Māori Club is a New Zealand cultural group and performance act formed in the South Taranaki town of Pātea in 1967 as the Pātea Methodist Māori Club. In 1983, the group began to release Māori-language pop and hip hop music, produced by Dalvanius Prime with lyrics by Ngoi Pēwhairangi. Their first single, "Poi E", reached number one on the New Zealand top 50 singles chart in 1984.
The group released further singles, such as "Aku Raukura", "Hei Konei Rā (Farewell)", and "E Papa", and toured the United Kingdom in 1984 and 1985. Prime had plans for a musical adaptation of "Poi E" and a separate children's animated film, however the death of Pēwhairangi in 1985 slowed progress for these projects. Eventually the group's album Poi E was released in 1987, and the musical was performed in 1994. Prime died in 2002.
The song's popularity was revitalised in 2010 after it was featured in the Taika Waititi film Boy, and again in 2016, when director Tearepa Kahi created Poi E: The Story of Our Song, a documentary film about the song's history, creation, and enduring popularity.