Themes of compassion, gratitude and hope were common to all three winning entries in the E Tū Whānau 2018 Song Competition.
The Whanganui based trio behind this year’s winning entry say that their song, ‘Troubled’ vibes on the heaviness of the situations whānau find themselves in but finishes up with the hope that there will be a brighter day.
Jay Rerekura, Tyson Tauri and Charlie Williams are social workers working with rangitahi and tane and they spend a lot of time hanging out with their own mates.
For the brothers
‘Troubled’, they say, is for the brothers.
“We all have times when we get stressed out or bothered by situations in or out of our control. For us, this waiata is about saying to our brothers, ‘we can be better, we need to be better … and we will’. Ahakoa nga piki me nga heke, me tū kaha tātou.”
Jay, Tyson, Charlie and his brother Danny who co-wrote the winning song, took home $5000 for their efforts.
Benefits for winners
This is the third year that the song competition has been held and each year it gains in popularity with more entries and greater public participation. The competition is run through the 23 iwi radio stations that come together under the Māori Media Network banner.
At least two past prize winners have benefited from the competition. In 2016, Mauri won first prize for their song ‘Whakatō Te Kākano’ which has been in the Top 20 Te Reo Māori Airplay Chart for 56 weeks now. And Pianika Duncan’s song ‘Bring Mana to Your Name’ went viral after taking out third prize in 2017.
The public are invited to vote for their favourite songs and this year 43,634 people did just that. A total of 180,000 people checked out one or more of the 81 entries as they were posted on the E Tū Whānau facebook page.
