Street sounds
Nearly 30 years after its groundbreaking debut, Proud is back, this time on vinyl, writes Graham Reid.
The late Phil Fuemana – producer, mentor and prime mover behind urban Pacific music – once said, “Proud didn’t make us, we made Proud,”
a terse assertion about the 1994 album of South Auckland music, Proud: An Urban-Pacific Streetsoul Compilation.
The album launched the short career of Sisters Underground with their hit In the Neighbourhood and shone the spotlight on MC Slam (Charlie Brown), Semi MCs, Pacifican Descendants and others, notably the sardonically named Ōtara Millionaires Club with We R the OMC.
That group was a launchpad for Fuemana’s younger brother Pauly, who, as OMC, would take How Bizarre to the world the following year. Ermehn (Herman Loto) and
Dei Hamo (Sani Sagala) also emerged from Proud.
The origins of Proud were local clubs, recordings in Alan Jansson’s Uptown Studios in Freemans Bay and the Voodoo Rhyme parties of DJ Andy Vann and Chris Bateup.
What solidified was a rare conjunction of unvarnished talent, expressive energy and young people with something to say. It was music of, and from, South Auckland’s streets, a blend of street knowledge and church harmonies, R&B and hip hop
– messages from the sprawling suburbs under the pylons south of central Auckland.
In the Neighbourhood – and Greg Semu’s accompanying clip of ordinary people in the ‘hood – was an unfiltered broadcast into middle New Zealand homes, truth with a pop hook: “You don’t know me, you haven’t seen what I’ve seen, so you could never really understand what I mean …”
Elsewhere, MC Slam clarifies: “Violence on the streets and violence at home, old people unprotected and left alone … crime on the increase, cops on the decrease … prove me wrong.”
These were tough, unmediated lyrics that demanded to be heard.
Last year, Jansson – who conceived the album and crafted the sound, subsequently producing How Bizarre – accepted the Taite Music Prize’s Independent Music NZ Classic Record award for Proud.
Released locally on Simon Grigg’s Huh! label, Proud is a landmark album, but has been unavailable for decades. Now, there’s a double vinyl edition, remastered by Jansson and overseen by Grigg. It has two In the Neighbourhood remixes and We R the OMC in a dub mix. It appears for the first time on record as a collection true to its name and giving voice to the otherwise unheard.
In the reissue’s liner notes, DJ Sir-Vere (Phil Bell) says the songs “gave me proper insight into what Pacifica hip hop and R&B should sound like, our own take on the genre”.
Bell singles out We R the OMC as a track which still resonates. It does, especially when an emotional Phil Fuemana sings, “This is for my father, this is for our mothers, this is for our brothers, sisters, babies, children too. We are the Ōtara Millionaires Club. And we do it all for you.” ▮
The double LP vinyl edition of Proud: An UrbanPacific Streetsoul Compilation is released on May 26.