![]() The staunch South Aucklander shut them down: “Unfortunately for me, or maybe fortunately for me, I come from the ghetto of New Zealand.” ![]() In America, some rappers made fun of his Samoan Kiwi accent, or that he was from the Land of Hobbits. So I was like, ‘No, get the hell outta here, man.’” Turns out, he chuckles, “it was none other than Wiz Khalifa”, the skinny black rapper behind mega-hits like ‘Black and Yellow’. Once, at a gig in Utah: “This stoner dude just walks up to me and he’s like, ‘Man, you guys Samoan?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, I’m Samoan, he’s Rarotongan.’ He goes, ‘Man, can I hang out with you guys?’ Well you know, I looked at this dude like, this dude’s a weirdo. He laughs a lot during our conversations humour kept him going during the years touring the USA. I watched Savage several times on stage during 2013, pumping out tunes like ‘Swing’, ‘They Don’t Know’ and Sione’s Wedding 2’s ‘Wild Out’. ‘Swing’ scored more than 33 million downloads on Savage’s Myspace page, YouTube saw tens of millions of hits and multiple covers. Moonshine’s 'Swing' soared through an American music industry decimated by piracy, selling 1.8 million singles. In 2008, the song’s totemic line “Against all odds we kiwis do fly” came true. “You will find peace beneath the wood beneath the stone” - ‘Fallen Angels’ kicked off the journey that changed his life. I did a lot of bad things.” He was expelled from high school, and got caught up in gangs, drug dealing, and violence. “A lot of it really fucked me up as a teenager. After Elimination, he realised he had to let go of all the anger and hurt about what his father did and didn’t do it was gnawing away at his insides. The earthy, genial guy is wearing a black lavalava, T-shirt, glasses and cap, with a sweat-soaked white towel draped around his shoulders. “If I’m not out there letting people know that they’re not alone, then I’m not doing my job, not just as a rapper, but as a human being.”Īt his lowest ebb, Big Sav tells me, he was homeless and sleeping under bridges, inspiring ‘Set Me Free’. I thank him for representing on suicide, mentioning a close friend killed himself. I raise his 2005 debut solo album Moonshine’s ‘Set Me Free’, where he orated about overcoming being suicidal. It’s hard for me to stay still and stay calm/ I looked into the mirror ripped half of my face off.”Īt his lowest ebb, Big Sav tells me, he was homeless and sleeping under bridges, inspiring ‘Set Me Free’. ![]() You never once held me or showed me love. “ Brought up in Manurewa was a little rugged kid/ I struggled through pain as if I broke a hundred ribs/. Savage’s song ‘Broken Home’, the Once Were Warriors of hip-hop on meth, hacked its way into heads like mine: Two decades on, Dawn Raid’s Deceptikonz dropped their pioneering 2002 album Elimination. There was violence at home while Demetrius’ mother Aiga was pregnant with him in 1981, she was looked after by a Greek woman. "I was born a fuckin' mistake," Savage growls on 2012’s 'All In'. Indeed, Savage and Joel Fletcher’s ‘Swing’ remix has been in the top five on the Australian charts for months during 2014, peaking at No.2. “If I don’t evolve like Snoop Dogg’s evolved, I fall off the face of the earth.” The poker dabbler’s put chips on a significant Australian single release, where he plays lots. ![]() Cool and collected, Savage shakes my hand firmly during three interviews over the last year.ĭawn Raid and their star act parted ways amicably last year. We were discussing his and Judd Apatow’s accidental father classic: the South Auckland rapper’s ‘Swing’ scored that scene where Rogen hooks up with Katherine Heigl’s hottie on the club dance floor.īefore Demetrius Christian Taanuu Savelio’s smash hit took him to the charts in America, Australia and New Zealand, came an extraordinary journey up from South Auckland’s toughest streets. ![]() “Is that guy from New Zealand? Really? He’s great!” Seth Rogen once exclaimed about Savage before collapsing into laughter like his affectionate Knocked Up character. ![]()
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