On the beat with a message

By WARREN GAMBLE

Glen Compain's rap sheet has nothing to do with his police job.

On the Pasifika Festival stage today, the constable with rhythm and a melange of Pacific Island, French, black American and Maori blood will pump out his brand of hip-hop to an audience as varied as the tapa cloths on sale.

The 32-year-old rapper reflects the maturing of a festival no longer an island of traditional expression in the world's biggest Polynesian city.

At the first Pasifika, in 1993, an audience of 30,000 watched traditional island dance and music. Today at Western Springs, 130,000 people are expected to witness everything from hip-hop to breakdancing and Pacific Island short films.

Like the artists it showcases, Pasifika has become part of Auckland's fabric, Island style shaped by New Zealand experience.

"Just the feeling you get walking around there with Europeans, Maori, Samoans, Tongans and everyone, there's nothing like it," says Compain.

He first performed at the festival in 1996, playing hip-hop numbers, many drawn from his experiences in black America and as an aid worker in Uganda.

At 10.30am today he will be performing songs he describes as urban Pacific, still with the hip-hop influence, but with Polynesian rhythms and harmonies.

He is no Eminem. He is a committed Christian, so swearing is out.

"I have been at Pasifikas where they have had groups who swear and talk about violence and how great they are," he says. "I want to be an artist that young kids can say, 'He's being himself'."

He is no Pollyanna. His work on the beat has given him first-hand experience of youth suicide, violent crime, and broken homes.

Some of his songs deal with issues such as domestic violence and ruined relationships. But he also puts his own optimism into music, hoping it can reach young people, particularly those at the "turning point" of intermediate school age.

The chorus of his soon-to-be released first single "I Can Do" says "I know there is something that I can say, something that I can do, and so I'll tell the world there is nothin that you cannot do".

It is a refrain he has carried to the streets of West Auckland, to his new police job as the Henderson-based Pacific Island liaison officer, and to the Youth Station programme he has set up with friend and former school sporting rival Michael Jones.

The All Black legend, who still looks as if he could tackle you flat, wanders in as Compain rehearses in an empty New Lynn Community Centre hall.

Every Friday night the pair open the centre to troubled and disaffected youths. Within five months of the scheme starting, more than 100 young people are wandering in for three-on-three basketball or open-microphone rap sessions. Young Pacific Islanders are the mainstays, but gradually other ethnic groups have joined in.

Compain says it is only a start to plans for full-time community academies to teach job and life skills to young people.

He has had plans to become a helper from the time he went to California as an 18-year-old Kelston Boys High School graduate to follow a basketball dream.

Compain made it into a high school team near San Francisco, but it was what he learned off the court which stayed with him.

He lived with African American relatives from his paternal grandmother's side, and became immersed in black culture.

He had to learn how to walk, talk, and rap, how to avoid getting shot over a minor dispute, how to survive.

Compain came home after a year "because I knew if I stayed, I was in an environment where life was cheap. And I missed my parents.

"I missed going down the road and not having to watch your back, going to a park and not worrying whether you are in someone's 'hood. I knew I had to get out to have a future for myself."

C OMPAIN tells young Pacific Islanders and Maori who want to model themselves on US gangs that they have better choices.

"The guys over there, if they had those same choices they would leave those gangs in a second."

Compain's American experiences, seeing the plight of blacks and Native American, Vietnam war veterans and the homeless shook him.

"I began to have a real heart for the disconnected."

This was underlined in 18 months as a voluntary worker for a non-denominational church group in the civil war of northern Uganda.

He saw people die after being necklaced with burning tyres, others with their noses, lips and ears cut off, a street lined with skulls, orphaned infants dying from lack of affection.

"I went from one real life-changing experience to another," says Compain. "In everything I do during the day, Uganda and America are my yardsticks."

Compain, influenced by American rappers and mandatory on-the-spot performances at his cousin's parties, found another source in the harmonies of traditional African music. He started writing songs in Uganda and carried on when he returned home.

He began performing at churches and schools while he retrained and tried to find the right job, trying teaching and mental health work.

When he joined the police four years ago, he decided he had to give up the music to concentrate on his new career.

"After 2 1/2 years not writing or singing it's like it chased me. It's really weird."

Compain sees Polynesian artists such as Nesian Mystik and Che Fu as part of a flowering of New Zealand Pacific culture which has broken into the mainstream.

The son of a welder, he says newer generations have taken advantage of their parents' hard work, their Island connections and their New Zealand upbringing to make a unique contribution.

Compain may never be a star, but he will be out there today trying to make a difference, especially to the young.