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'Waka' is the final single from Che Fu's platinum-selling 1998 debut album 2b S.Pacific. The track opens to Fu's Cook Island drumming layered over a backbeat, immediately signalling his Polynesian inspiration. The lyrics imagine Fu journeying across Pacific waters towards a loved one. Fu is joined by hip hop and soul vocalist Teremoana Rapley, who also plays his faraway sweetheart. Renowned filmmaker Merata Mita shot the award-winning video on location in Hawaii, where she was living at the time. Hawaiian dancers weave a languid spell, the moonlight glimmers and Fu's Pasifika valentine is framed in tapa cloth.
‘Waka’ is a world-class track that is unmistakably Polynesian and proud of it, with an equally striking video shot on location in Hawaii.– Excerpt from AudioCulture profile of musician Che Fu, October 2018
Key Cast & Crew
Merata Mita
Richard Turner (Camera)
Acknowledgements
Video made with funding from NZ On Air
Categories
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