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Members of the Dawn Raid family always had a confident swagger about them. When they turned up en masse to the New Zealand Music Awards for example, guiding their beefy frames through the doors and sauntering through the crowd, they were more than likely wearing shirts emblazoned with the name of the current album the label was pushing.
It was never an intimidating, tough-guy image, more a confident, we-mean-business approach.
However, last year the puff was taken out of their billowing bravado when the South Auckland record label, whose empire included fashion, hairdressing and graphic design arms, went into liquidation after 10 years.
Mareko, a member of hip-hop group Deceptikonz and one of Dawn Raid's most prolific artists, calls the liquidation "that little situation".
"It was shocking for a little bit but I think we knew a little more than the public. For the public it would have just seemed like it came out of nowhere, but we knew about it for a bit and these guys always had investors in their corner so we kind of knew it wouldn't go down."
For Dawn Raid it was a case of getting back on the horse and riding it, and Mareko's second solo album, White Sunday 2: The Book of Mark, is the label's fourth release since the dark days of a year ago.
"We've been banging out albums since that little situation," he says.
Nowadays, though, things are a little different. Mareko and the other Deceptikonz - Savage, Devolo and Alphrisk - have set up their own record label, Horsemen Records.
The label's first project, the Horsemen Family album My Shout from last year, which produced top 10 hit Feels Like Magic, was a joint project with Dawn Raid.
"I guess we just thought, 'Man, this is serious and if it isn't going to be around forever then we better have a back up-plan'. I think we're just more aware."
Although, to complicate things, White Sunday 2 was released this week and came out through Dawn Raid.
Sitting next to Mareko at the offices of Universal Music, which distributes Dawn Raid and Horsemen albums, you appreciate how the people of Lilliput must have felt when Gulliver turned up. He's a towering and solid presence yet his voice has a deep, laid-back, almost gentle tone.
He made a name for himself as a battle MC in 2000, when he won the Battle For Supremacy, and a staunch rapper and producer on the first Deceptikonz album, Elimination, in 2002, and the first White Sunday a year later. Since then he's grown up, become more self-assured, and finds it easier to say it like it is.
On the meandering, and at times narky Next Sunday from WS2 he rattles off a list of local hip-hop names. Some get royal treatment; to others he's not so complimentary. In one instance he bails up West Auckland rapper Unique who "pissed off everyone in the scene".
"That was a pretty brave song," he says. "I say a lot of names and I was a bit suss on how people would take it, and their reactions. A couple of guys have already hit me up. And I'm like, 'Ah no, it's nothing like that, you're my friend, I got respect for everything you do'.
"But it's the truth and that's what I pride this album on. You can't front it because it's from the heart and what I'm saying is the truth. Not to say I didn't tell the truth before, it's just easier to be honest now rather than be the cool battle rapper."
He also reckons the biggest change in him personally since White Sunday is he's more relaxed.
"Before I was a ball of energy because the whole environment and scene was real bravadocious, when battles were at their peak, but now it's all about good music."
WS2 is also more refined. These days he's more like the hip-hop equivalent of a singer/songwriter rather than a writer of rhymes and producer of beats.
"Yeah, yeah, definitely," he agrees, "and on this album that shines a lot more because on the first White Sunday it was just verse, hook, verse, hook, and beating other MCs up. Whereas this one is more personal."
There are tracks like Sin City ("It's me reporting on what's happening around the city; that song is reality rap.") which features a prominent former newsreader.
Them Eyes is a song every parent can relate to ("Daddy don't know she got two lives, in the nightclub acting her shoe size", a line heavily influenced by Prince).
And on current single, Gotta Go, the cheeky Deceptikonz sense of humour comes through when he jokes, "I just hope I ain't sitting with the boys on the plane, you know we ain't fitting".
Mareko believes the current state of hip-hop is confused. Whereas in the past people were able to relate to the rebelliousness of hip-hop, it's now about "bling and partying" and dominated by "kids" like Souljah Boy.
"I think everyone secretly wants that old school hip-hop but no one knows whether to change with the times or stick to their guns. But that's why I wanted to make an album like White Sunday 2, because there's only one track that has a crunk influence and the rest are just soulful, real hip-hop, with stories."
Who: Mareko
New album: White Sunday 2: The Book Of Mark
Where & when: Tomorrow night, Zen, Auckland; Saturday, Bar 220, Manurewa. Also May 24, Zen
