KEY POINTS:
'My mum had been smoking since she was 14; a country rural girl, down Putaruru... that's just what you did back then."
Te Awanui Reeder pauses briefly before continuing his explanation of how his mother Noelene "Noel" Reeder died, just over a year ago, and pushes his hands a little deeper into his orange hoodie pockets.
"No one really had an idea of the effects, and as time went on she got emphysema, and then lung cancer, and then they combined, and basically took her. Basically."
There is a long pause as he glances out the window, and considers how to go on.
It is difficult for him, at just 24 years old, to talk about his loss. But he is a victim of nicotine's addictiveness, he says, and the tobacco companies that are hungry for revenue; he has lost his "onto it" mum after watching her decline into a horrible, painful illness for two years before she finally just stopped breathing.
Noel Reeder, mother of one of New Zealand's biggest pop stars, was just 49 years old.
He shakes his head. "Didn't make 50. What a waste."
Clean-cut, good-looking Reeder, called "Awa" for short, is usually a private person, although he has been in the public eye since the age of 15 as the front-man for Nesian Mystik - the enormously successful Polynesian pop reggae, hip-hop band - which he and five school friends formed in 1999 and which has topped Kiwi pop charts for the past eight years.
"We've won pretty much every award there is to win" Reeder jokes, although it isn't far from the truth. With two gold albums both reaching the top 10 charts, two NZ Tui gongs for best urban album and the people's choice, an APRA silver scroll award, and a third album (Elevator Musiq) on the way, it is hard to believe that many of the young men in that band are yet to turn 25. Adored by teenage girls, the band is serious about its success - all members of the group study outside of music (see story top left).
When he's not rehearsing and playing with the Mystics, Reeder as lead vocalist and songwriter has other day jobs, presenting Bassline, a Maori Television music show, plus two radio shows, including one for Flava, and Te Puutake, a syndicated Maori youth show.
His popularity with audiences is part of the reason he joined forces with the Health Sponsorship Council (HSC), The Quit Group, and Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) to promote a non-smoking message. But it was the death of his mum which really pushed him into protesting about the marketing and placement of cigarettes in retail stores.
"She would've wanted me to do this," he says with certainty. "She never regretted anything, there wasn't any point. She just said she would have made better choices if she knew."
Reeder is staunch when it comes to speaking about Noel, a worker for community health group Procare. Life goes on, he believes, if it's meant to be, it's meant to be. But close beneath his self-assurance and confidence are visible signs of loss and anger.
One of 13 children, Noel had been a smoker for 35 years by the time she died. As a child, Reeder made posters with a red cross over a cigarette in attempts to get both his parents to give up the habit.
"She's the strongest woman I know: she gave up drinking and that's tough, but couldn't give up smoking. So she said 'oh well, everyone's got one vice.' And it's my mum, so she can do what she wants, I'm not gonna say anything. Or I'll get kicked outta home," he laughs.
Not wanting her children to worry, Noel kept her sickness from Reeder and younger sister Ataria for as long as she could, but when she was diagnosed two years ago with lung cancer, on top of the emphysema she was already battling, he moved back home to help.
"She got sick and then she got better, and the doctor said everything was going good... but then it turned for the worse and it all happened really quickly. It's all kind of a bit of a blur to me."
Usually a sharp, smart woman, Reeder says Noel was numbed by morphine towards the end of her life, yet she still carefully planned her funeral. Whanau gathered at the family home in the central Auckland suburb of Sandringham to take care of Noel and fill her usual role in the household - "so I still got my washing done," Reeder says with a laugh. "It was good people, good food, good laughs. We were laughing until the end, y'know."
Yet amid the jokes, there was also anger. "The hardest thing was that you can't do anything about it, that's the thing that pisses you off the most," he says.
"'Cause you can't even tell the doctor to do something... you just get pissed off with everybody, and you want to smash the doctor, but you know they are doing what their job is.
"And you're just like 'why me? Why my mum?,' as you would. As anybody would."
So Reeder, already a pop star and household name among a certain kind of hip-hop household, transferred his frustration to the marketing of cigarettes. He is fronting a campaign for Ash - Action group on Smoking and Health - venting about sales pitches of those who sell tobacco.
He tried smoking himself once, down the back of the field at Western Springs College in Auckland, but was caught - the disappointment from his mum was enough to put him off for life.
"I feel for people, cause it's tough y'know?' Cause if they don't really know about [the dangers], how can we expect them to make the right choices? I'm not saying that if you smoke, you're bad. And I'm real about it; I know that smoking is going to be there, just like drugs, alcohol, gangs, war. But it's important to be aware of the effects, and aware of how this product can affect not only you, but your whole family."
"It's common sense really, but you feel like you have to keep saying these things."
A major part of the problem, Reeder believes, is tobacco companies spend millions of dollars on the advertising and marketing of their products even though they know they can be fatal.
His own education, including a bachelor of business studies majoring in management and marketing, and his present work towards a post-graduate diploma of marketing at the Auckland University of Technology, has taught him that much.
"When you learn about how things are marketed, you start to see beyond what the product is. At the end of the day sugar's sugar, salt is salt: the only difference is the packaging it comes in," he explains. The bright colours of cigarette packets and their placement at eye-level in dairies and supermarkets manipulate customers and provide cues for people to want to purchase them, Reeder claims. They ensnare children with their display.
By selling and promoting tobacco products, stores are, in some ways, helping people to kill themselves.
"Legally, yes it is [OK to smoke], but legally it is OK to jump off the Sky Tower with no safety gear: you don't see anyone promoting that."
Reeder's solution is to ban the sale of cigarettes in this country altogether - and his arguments have a ring of youthful naivety about them at times, which he acknowledges. But there is no doubt as to the passion that drives him to speak out.
"I actually care about the welfare of you, and your family, and our people," he promises. "'It's not going to happen to me': I thought that. I even thought that when she [Noel] was sick. I thought she was gonna get better, but no. And that's real.
"If people don't connect to anybody, then connect to me, and me being real about it, and being affected in real terms, and losing real lives."
HSC manager of youth marketing Heidi Flaxman says it is Reeder's ability to make the dangers of smoking seem palpable, particularly to Maori youth, that makes him an ideal face for the campaign to de-normalise smoking for young people.
"Awa and Nesian Mystik have such a high profile in the Maori population, and [the issues] are so close to home for him, too."
And Maori are the most at risk of smoking. While 23 per cent of New Zealanders smoke, that figure is doubled when it comes to Maori, and the highest rates fall in the 20 to 24-year-old age group.
Significantly higher numbers of Maori are also more likely to be exposed to people smoking inside homes, smoking in cars, and come from families of smokers, according to the 2006 New Zealand Tobacco Use survey.
"Shocking" is the word Reeder uses to describe the rates of tobacco use within his indigenous community, and he says Maori are the primary focus of his drive to better inform the public about the effects of cigarettes.
Aside from their success in the music industry Reeder knows "the boys" are role models for other areas of their fans' lives too.
"You have to either work or study to be in the Nesian crew. And everyone is sticking to policy so far, so that's pretty good. Considering half our boys (the Nesian Mystiks) didn't even pass fifth form, for them to be at university is a massive achievement. And they will have qualifications their parents never had, and be able to buy houses their parents never got to buy," he says proudly.
The group are getting older - three of the members have children now - and they all value their privacy, but Reeder is willing to open up about his own life and grief to use it for positive effect.
He will be telling his own kids not to smoke when he has them, even though he acknowledges that everyone has to make their own choices.
In the end, he believes that smoking won't be eradicated, but it won't be for want of trying on his part. Smoking killed his mum, and now she won't be around for the birth of his children, her grandchildren - something Kiwi smokers, he believes, need to hear.
"Because family," he says, gazing out the door for a moment before smiling again, "It means more than everything. If you take everything else away from life, family means everything."
NESIAN MYSTIK
Although half didn't pass fifth form, Nesian Mystik members must either work or study as well as sing in the band. They are:
Te Awanui Reeder (vocals): Bachelor of Business Studies (management and marketing), Diploma of Business Studies, studying Japanese at Unitec, and currently completing post-graduate diploma in marketing.
Feleti Strickson-Pua (raps): Father of two; youth worker in South Auckland.
Donald McNulty (raps): Studying Japanese at Unitec.
Junior Rikiau (raps & drums): Father of one; works in events at Sky City.
David Atai (guitar & vocals): Father of three; works at Eden Park, and produces for Nesian Mystik and other artists.
Heath Manukau (turntables): Works at Eden Park, and is also a DJ.
