The man is a living legend, politically conscious, crusader for the rights of his people, and frontman for the reggae band Unity Pacific. Tigilau has been making music that matters for decades and was recognised for this with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the recent S3 Pacific Music Awards. Photography by Pat Shepherd Interview by Warren Maxwell
Do you think we will ever see anything like the Dawn Raids of the early ’70s or the 1981 Springbok protests ever again? Yes. 31 years ago I wore my Polynesian Panther T-shirt down Queen St in Auckland City, marching in protest against Auckland City Council and the New Zealand Government’s joint action in evicting Ngāti Whātua off their own lands up at Bastion Point. You know how that ended. 31 years later on exactly the same day I wear my Polynesian Panther T-shirt, marching up Queen St in Auckland City in protest hikoi against the same joint actions of the same joint people – Auckland City Council with its Mayor and the New Zealand Government with its Prime Minister – yet again acting jointly in a similar greedy, racist, and oppressive manner. To the same people! My people! The Dawn Raids? Well, the so-called T Raids they did on Tame (Iti) and a whole lot of sleeping families down the East Coast in the early hours of the morning kind of rings a bell doesn’t it? They won’t change. We won’t change either. You know how this is going to end ay Warren?
If you could go back in time and change anything in your life, what would it be? No changes. No regrets. I am that I am.
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