Mentors

Ngāti Kahungunu native from Hawke’s Bay on the East Coast of Aotearoa. Tipene is a kaupapa driven hip-hop artist on a mission to re-indigenise Māori through the power of his music. Despite being categorised as a hip-hop artist Tipene has a broad palette from funk, RnB, electronic, alternative, soul and taonga pūoro (traditional Māori instruments).

Tipene has released 2 studio albums, 2x APRA Silver Scroll finalist, multi music award nominee, winner of Best Māori Urban Album/Artist 2019, 100k followers and over 8 million streams across all platforms.

Notably, Tipene doesn’t use profanity in his music which means he has a wider audience across all age groups and ethnicities which is a rarity in hip-hop.

Tipene has collaborated with notable NZ music icons such as Prince Tui Teka, Chē Fu, Troy Kingi, Scribe, Maisey Rika, DLT, DAM Native, Sid Diamond, Mareko, Pieter T, Chong Nee and more.