It's good to be King

By REBECCA BARRY

King Kapisi is imposingly big, lyrically confrontational and fond of boxing. He's surely not the type you'd want to come across in an inner-city park.

Which is exactly where we've planned to meet.

King Kapisi pulls up in a robust 4WD and hops out with a rugby ball under his arm.

It would make a great photograph, except he's never played the sport - the ball is for his partner and 1-year-old son to kill time nearby.

While hip-hop is Kapisi's game, these days image is, too.

Four years ago he lived up to his alias, becoming the first hip-hop artist to win the coveted Songwriter of the Year Award at the Apra Silver Scrolls for his song, Reverse Resistance. His debut album, Savage Thoughts, proudly branded as Samoan hip-hop, went on to sell almost 15,000 copies.

Then came the media exposure, the billboards and the clothing label. The night Kapisi scooped six b-Net awards, he took to the stage with braids flying, spitting expletives as if to say, "success is the best revenge".

But Bill Urale, the real King Kapisi, isn't an angry person. Reclining on the grass, he grins at the autumn sun and kisses his son on the forehead.

"I'm a nice guy," he says. "I've always been a nice guy. Only problem is, give me a mic and I'm pretty harsh. I take it pretty seriously. When people see me play, they're like, 'Damn, he's aggressive'."

On the cover of 2nd Round Testament, his rhythmically challenging, instrumentally adventurous new album, Urale is pictured in the boxing ring, dressed for a fight. It's a theme exemplified by the hard-hitting single, Conversate, and the self-trumpeting battle rhyme, Illa Than You: "Pissing on your premises, this is your arch nemesis".

"He is definitely King Kapisi when he's on the mic," agrees studio engineer Luke Tomes, who worked closely with Urale on the album and partied with him when the album was finally mastered in Australia.

"We'd be sitting there having a cup of tea, talking about life. Then he'd get in the booth and all this rage would come out and I'd be pretty much sitting there shocked, like, 'Wow, I'm glad you got that out'. Then he'd come back out and it's back to Bill again. He's a gentle giant."

Urale's sister and former manager Makerita agrees.

"I wouldn't call it aggression," she says. "I'd call it awareness. Bill is good at using his exposure to educate and inform his own generation. There are a lot of Samoan people who don't know their history, and having him talk about it is a sign he's a real artist because he's commenting on society's issues. He's not just blabbing off about 'my baby in the back seat of a flash car' or 'my girl in a flash bikini with big boobies'."

While Savage Thoughts pounced on the issues that get on Urale's wick - religion and the colonisation of Pacific Islanders - 2nd Round Testament is more a celebration of his heritage. Stomping, for instance, is a slightly absurd but admirable summons to go "stomping in my big islander jandals".

Despite the album's frequent "coconut" references, however, Urale has never performed in Samoa. Perhaps his people are disappointed he hasn't played there, he says. Perhaps he will play his "nice set" there soon.

"I used to have reservations about playing back home, because of my lyrical content and because the majority of it is in English. I'm happy with the situation we're at now because all the singles and the videos are sent back home and they play them on TV regularly. People know who I am. It's like David Tua or Bernice Mene or Beatrice Faumuina. Everyone is like, 'Hey, those cats are Samoan, let's be proud of them'."

Samoa is his family's birthplace, but Urale was born in New Zealand just after his parents, brother and four sisters emigrated from a small village in Savai'i to Wellington.

For luck in their new country his mother gave him a Maori middle name, Rangi.

Throughout his youth Bill Rangi Urale sang in the family band, banged out tunes on the piano after hearing them on the radio and started listening to the Commodores, James Brown and Aretha Franklin.

He was a sporty student at Wellington High School, taking up basketball, soccer and underwater hockey. (His mother, protective of her youngest child, forbade him from playing rugby in case he hurt himself.)

Unlike most Samoan families, the Urales didn't go to church.

"We were the oddballs in the Samoan community," says Makerita, who said their mother questioned the church and their father "did whatever he liked."

His parents' influence obviously rubbed off. Taking after his father's independent streak, Urale built himself a home studio in the bush near Piha to ensure creative control on his album. And, like his mother, he's critical of the church and its role in modern Samoan.

"There's a saying in the Samoan community, 'Who made you'? and you're supposed to go, 'God made me'. But God didn't tell my mum and dad to have sex and conceive me, y'know what I mean? And that's what I don't understand.

"I have talked to God. I've sat in my room and someone passes away and you go, 'Shit, God, why did you take that person away from me? But he's never said anything back."

Unlike God, Urale says he makes sure he always answers his fans. Sometimes he'll stay an extra hour to sign autographs "because I'd like to think my idols would wait for me".

He could walk down Queen St right now, he says, and get plenty of "hellos" and verbal affirmations. It's the moment after they've walked away he has trouble dealing with.

"I've been Mr Nice Guy for the past two years," he explains. "But it gets to the point where you've just got to stop being Mr Nice Guy. It's so harsh cos some people are like, 'I really like your stuff', then when they walk away they go, 'Who the [expletive] does he think he is?"

"I know we put ourselves in the public eye, but you've got to have a private life at some stage. Because we've had a bit more buzz with the clothing label and the new video out, it's only going to get bigger, it's only going to get worse. But that's what I signed up for. I have to give myself to the public quite a lot."

Not long after Savage Thoughts was released, Urale accepted an endorsement offer from Nescafe and his photograph was printed on billboards, advertisements and posters around the country.

"My family's been drinking Nescafe since we've been in New Zealand," he reasons. "So I was like, 'Yep, I support that.' I only support things I believe in. I've done stuff with a few New Zealand-based clothing labels but I have turned down a couple of things."

Urale's next side-project is his own clothing range, Overstayer, which he's stocking in Farmers' stores and a few streetwear boutiques around the country.

"I don't think of myself as a business businessman, but I'm giving it a go," he says. "I'm trying to spread out and think of a different way of earning a living than just music. If I can make something that is affordable for the people - the people being working class who haven't got millions of dollars - that's half the struggle. So I think $39 is pretty reasonable for a T-shirt, $39 for a hoodie and $89 for jeans - my gosh, that's incredible."

He's also careful not to alienate his fans. The banner across the top of his first album, 'Samoan Hip-Hop', has been downsized to miniscule print for the second. It's all hip-hop, he says. It's also more than just him this time - first single U Can't Resist Us is a duet with Che-Fu, while a track with West Auckland metallers Blindspott was recorded but left off the album at the last minute and is likely to become a B-side.

Also in the offing is a visit to New York to play a special New Zealand music showcase at the Central Park SummerStage festival in July. It will be a chance for him to see the mean streets of hip-hop's birthplace.

"Hip-hop is universal and it's meant to be confrontational," he says. "You give me a mic, I just go hard. You won't see me ever go half-pie, regardless of if there's one person or 40,000. Sometimes you lose your battles and sometimes you win. But you always know you're going to come back for round two. This is my round two, this is my testament."

* 2nd Round Testament is released this week.