Watch MOKOTRON's Animated Video For 'KO WAI KOE?'

MOKOTRON's (Ngāti Hine) animated video for new single 'KO WAI KOE?' is literally transformative, reimagining late 20th century sci-fi pop signifiers into powerfully resonant new forms of Māori futurism. Winner of Te Tohu Kaipuoro Toa (Favourite Solo Act) at the 2024 Mighty Aotearoa Alternative Awards, the Tāmaki-based electronic producer continues a phenomenal run of video collaborations with Simon Ward, working with Māori digital artist Kereama Taepa on the accompanying clip made with support from NZ On Air.

Viewed on screens within your whare / local dairy's game parlour (evoking strong memories of Beach Haven shops for this viewer), 'KO WAI KOE?' presents pāua-embellished, crown-blasting, wooden texture-munching digital carvings in motion — exploding from fusty museum contexts to reshape past, present and future. Harkening to MOKOTRON's earlier dancehall and lovers rock work as half of High Stakes, learn more about the conservation-motivated kaupapa of 'KO WAI KOE?' below, the third cut from forthcoming long player WAEREA out in full on 6th December via Sunreturn (vinyl LP preorders available HERE). Catch MOKOTRON performing in the near future at Saturday's Boiler Room Aotearoa event, The 95bFM Christmas Party on 20th December, and Ōhinehou / Lyttelton's Port Noise music and arts festival on 1st March...

“With KO WAI KOE? I wanted to move on from tracks TAWHITO, ŌHĀKĪ & WAEREA. I dropped the chanting and just sang with harmony. I dropped the emphasis on puoro and the breakbeat edits placed the emphasis on the snare rather than the kick. KO WAI KOE? is more melodic and hype, it doesn’t have that dark vibe you hear on so many of my tracks.

I wrote this lyric over a decade ago when I was involved in discussions with an iwi to settle their grievances in regard to Crown breaches of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. We were in discussions with the inappropriately named Te Papa Atawhai, the Department of Conservation, known to some Māori as the Department of Confiscation. The Crown had very little land to return to the iwi - some of the only Crown land left in their region was conservation land. I watched as DOC explained that the lands could not be used for anything except to accommodate tourists, in one of the poorest and least developed regions in the country. Understand, some of the communities here are without basic utilities, like electricity, water, phone lines, cell phone coverage or internet. People don’t realise we have third world conditions in this country. The iwi asked if they could build a marae or plant gardens on the land, DOC said no, responding they wanted the land to return to its traditional state. Exasperated, the iwi responded that gardens were the traditional state the land had been in for 1000 years. DOC had nothing to say to that.

Conservation lands are not a sign of government foresight, benevolence or environmental prudence. In the Anglo-settler nations, settlers stole Indigenous lands and destroyed our eco-systems. The theft of conservation lands was the last stage of this process – once settlers had stolen and destroyed all the land of ‘economic value’, they stole the final tribal hinterlands and coastal lands with no ‘economic value’ and turned them into national parks.

I remember feeling a deep sense of rage, that public servants would have the right, let alone the gall, to tell mana whenua what to do. I wrote this down as a reggae song. The song had a chorus and verses. Sadly I lost the piece of paper I wrote it on and couldn’t remember the verses. Years later I had this breakbeat tune going, and suddenly the lyrics of the chorus just came out of my mouth, or what I remembered of them. That’s how the song came about. The post-script is that the iwi eventually chose to occupy the lands held by DOC.

I love Kereama’s work – that sci-fi pop culture Māori crossover is just my kaupapa and era. One thing I really regret was I wanted to buy one of Kereama’s early Star Wars prints years back so this was almost like a way of getting over that. It’s not a random connection either – Star Wars was based on Joseph Cambell’s research, which drew heavily on Māori and Pacific oral traditions around Māui and Tāwhaki, Star Trek was based on Captain Cook and so on. There’s a reason those stories resonate with us – they are our stories.

We reached a point where we decided we wanted Kereama to come up with an object that Simon could then explore as a landscape in a first-person gamer scenario. We couldn’t decide on an object but it had to represent raupatu, land confiscation. Simon stopped us both and asked us to explore the meaning of raupatu. I pointed out that raupatu is the rau of the patu, the sharp edge of the patu. The meaning is that raupatu is the ultimate, irreversible act of violence. Just as the sharp edge of a patu is used to execute someone, land confiscation is the ultimate act of violence that can be wielded against a people whose identity is grounded in whenua, in ancestral lands. Kereama responded that he would create a patu, a wahaika, to represent both the violence of the Crown through land confiscation, and as a symbol of militancy and action representing the mana of our young people to take up the struggle. That felt like a moment of māramatanga, spiritual intellectual enlightenment that arose from wānanga.

I feel like the last few months have been the best months of my life. Getting to work with artists you love on serious kaupapa and then getting to share the work with the community at this time when Māori rights and culture are under attack feels like we are doing the right thing at the right time."

UnderTheRadar proudly presents

The 95bFM Christmas Party
Featuring... Anthonie Tonnon, Caru, Créme Jéan, Cupid, Dick Move, Flamingo Pier, Mokotron, Monoga.my b2b Teddyyy, Phys Ed, Roy Irwin, DJs Carlotta & Scarlett (Love Language), Dubhead, Pennie Black, The Professor

Friday 20th December - Whammy / Double Whammy / Public Bar, Auckland

Limited bCard holder pre-sales are available from Wednesday 20th November, so check your emails for the code.
General admission sales are available via UTR from Wednesday 27th November — with the option to purchase a Super Supporter ticket, to show your support for the good ship b!

Port Noise 2025
First lineup... David Kilgour & The Heavy Eights, Jim Nothing, O/PUS, Mr Meaty Boy, Mokotron, Pachyman, Simon Joyner & The Eucalypts, Vanessa Worm + more to be announced
Saturday 1st March - various venues, Ōhinehou / Lyttelton
General allocation tickets on sale HERE via UTR

MOKOTRON's new album 'WAEREA' launches on Friday 6th December via Sunreturn, vinyl LP preorders available HERE.