Resistance synthesis of western and indigenous cultural music as seen in

Alien Weaponry’s Kai Tangata

Indigenous peoples often have trouble finding a way to get their voice heard in the

modern era, and this remains true in the sphere of music as well where Western music often

dominates other forms of musical expression. In these situations, indigenous music often changes

to fit the western framework. This sort of synthesis can be a type of cultural erasure but it can

also serve as a site of struggle (Sellnow) where a piece of media becomes subversive to the

hegemonic worldview. It is important to note however, that this usage of cultural music cannot

be done by just any individual or group without drawing, rightful, criticisms of appropriation.

With cultural appropriation held in the back of your mind, consider the New Zealand

band Alien Weaponry. Alien Weaponry was founded by two brothers Henry and Lewis de Jong

and later acquired a third member Ethan Trembath, they are a metal band inspired by the likes of

Metallica and Rage Against the Machine (Westermann) But they sing in Te-Reo the Maori

language and incorporate traditional instruments into their thrash metal music. The band has

come under fire for their useage of Maori cultural symbols and music but, despite being very

pale people, the two brothers were raised in a full immersion school Kura Kaupapa where they

exclusively spoke Te-Reo and spent time living in villages with other Maori peoples

(Westermann). Kahu Kutia, another white Maori, addresses this colourism in her university

magazine stating that, “I’ve participated in Kapa Haka; I’ve studied my language. But even if I

hadn’t, the credentials of myself, or anyone else from my culture, are not something that you are

allowed to quantify as some percentage of my blood or tone of my skin.” She goes on to cite this

colourist tendency as the logical consequence of colonialism oppressing native peoples and

pushing western standards of beauty onto them. Judging one’s ability to exist as Maori by their
color or pigment is itself reinforcing of hegemonic structures then, and it is important not to see a

group like Alien Weaponry as cultural appropriators.

This leaves the question of whether the band’s music is an example of resistance and

subversion of the hegemonic culture, which is more complex to address as the music is heavily

synthesized with and steeped in western traditions. To answer in a precise thesis: yes, the music

is a great example of resistance and it can be seen in not just the lyrics but the story that the

tempo and other structures of their songs carry. To make this point, it is helpful to focus closely

on a singular example and so this paper will address the song Kai Tangata specifically as

opposed to the larger body of work the band has produced.

The song’s title is a reference to a Maori god who’s name literally translates to man-eater

and features in many traditional songs focused on hunting and war (McLean). The official lyrics

to the song are accompanied by a small piece of historical context that the song addresses an

event in 1820 where northern Maori who had been Christianized slaughtered other villages with

rifles provided by the English. The entire song is sung in Te-Reo, and tells the story of a very

traumatic historic tragedy. The lyrics, such as “Waewae tapu takahi te ara taua - (Footsteps

pound the sacred warpath) Ka hopungia e maha nga upoko - (Many heads are sought)” (de Jong),

are punctuated by loud and dense guitar and drum patterns creating what Sellnow would refer to

as intensity patterns which are congruent with the comic lyrics focused on success in the

impending war. Even without knowledge of the language or access to translation, a listener could

understand these two facts of the song, its intensity and confident comic delivery of the lyrics

whatever they may mean. This creates an interesting dual interpretability of the song, for those

who can speak the language or become engaged enough to research they can see the whole

construct as ironic; a song glorifying the impending slaughter of one’s own kin. For those who
simply listen to the song as a heavy metal track with imperceptible lyrics but an infectious

aggressive energy that, at times, becomes unsettling enough to clue the listener in to the

underlying truth.

This is a subversive message inherently, as the hegemonic tendency is to wipe historic

memory of atrocities that it had a part in creating. Instead Alien Weaponry are forcing the

listeners to engage directly with this piece of history through the song, and have constructed the

song in such a way that even someone who doesn’t understand the lyrics, never sees the music

video, and never reads the historic preamble will still gain from having heard it. This is because

the representation of Maori language and music has been so suppressed, Maori music and

especially songs in Te-Reo are barely broadcast on New Zealands airwaves with the two major

broadcasting companies, TMP and NZOA, providing limited selections of each keeping Maori

music stuck in a small niche that it has fought to be heard in for decades (Cattermole). Alien

Weaponry has used a wider appeal genre, metal music, and infused it with the Maori culture they

grew up immersed in, in order to push that culture to a global audience as well as the New

Zealand audience.

The power of this subversion is found in the mass of cultural elements in the song that are

layered throughout, not just in the language and lyrics. The song begins with a long blast of a

pūtātara, a shell trumpet who’s sound can carry for miles and was used in signaling and religious

ceremony (McLean). The shell’s ring holds out as the guitar comes in and sets the intense pace

of the song. This rhythm itself is cultural, with each verse being driven by a bass kick pattern

emulating traditional war dance, with a sort of 1-2-3-4/1-2-triplet alternating rhythm intended to

lead dancers (McLean). Four minutes into the track, another traditional instrument comes into

play, a Kōauau which is a type of flute played with the mouth or nose (McLean), the flute has
been heavily pitch shifted and ominously hums under a few measure of bass riffs before the song

cuts back into what could be considered the climax of the song. This climactic moment where

the intensity has crescendo’d is coupled by the chant “A Tūmatauenga x4 - (Of Tūmatauenga)

Mahi nga mahi a Tūmatauenga x4 - (This is the work of Tūmatauenga)” (de Jong). Tūmatauenga

being another important god of war, who’s name means the angry face (McLean). This is the

strongest moment of the song rhetorically, as it tells a lot through the elements at play. A

distorted national instrument is drowned out by the louder western instruments which gives way

to a chant to the ‘angry face’ god. The song seems to communicate two things in this instant: the

band understands the totalizing influence of western culture in its ability to drown out and distort

native culture and it is this awareness that allows them to create such a precise piece of music,

and within the historical context of the song it reminds the listener of the Maori independence

this line finally reveals the perspective we are viewing the event from. If a traditional god is

being prayed to, we can understand the song is sung from the perspective of the massacred Maori

and not the Christian Maori, this prevents the massacred side from being portrayed as helpless

subjects which is a key myth that colonial hegemony must perpetuate as it justifies the

conquering and forcible cultural assimilation.

This overall theme of independence and capacity to fight back and resist is key to the

whole song, and even goes as far as to co-opt a piece of Maori culture that Maori themselves

often do not like to address. “Te kikokiko rekareka ō aku hoariri - (The sweet flesh of our

enemies)” (de Jong), this line here addresses the pre colonial practice of war cannibalism. This

history of cannibalism has been massively overblown historically, and many academics disagree

on when, how, and how much it occurred but it has been used to promote stereotypes of Maori

for ages (Laugesen). A professor Moon wrote a on the Maori which framed the cannibalism as
commonplace and widespread while an academic review of the book by professor Bevan-Smith

criticizes the lack of evidence for the frequency Moon claims as well as Moon’s misattribution of

quotes to the wrong historical figures when attempting to cite primary witnesses (Laugesen). The

direct mention of cannibalism, particularly how it ties to the historically dubious idea of warriors

eating their victims (Laugesen), is a powerful move as it coopts something that has been used to

‘other’ the Maori, and it is clear in the context of the song that it is part of the construct of

promoting the power and strength of traditional Maori culture and not some commentary on the

cannibalism. This is an intense example of a synechdochal sign, defined by Sellnow as a part or

piece of something that represents the whole, where eating the flesh stands in for Maori culture

in defiance of the racist history of the cannibal myth.

Alien Weaponry’s Kai Tangata is a powerful piece of rhetoric for resisting a hegemonic

structure that minimizes the voice and exposure of Maori people and their culture. The song is

constructed in such a way that it carries some portion of its message to listeners regardless of

their background knowledge on the situation by successfully synthesizing a mainstream western

genre of music with cultural elements taken directly from Maori music. In doing so it helps fill a

void of missing mainstream representation for Maori people and their language, as well as

potentially creating a wider space that more artists can come to fill as there is now wider

awareness of this kind of music and this culture.

Works Cited

Cattermole, Jennifer. Cultural Protectionism in a Deregulated and Diversifying Broadcasting

Environment: Getting More Ma¯ori Music on Air. Perfect Beat 15, no. 1 (2014): 67-87.
Laugesen, Ruth. Close to the bones The Listener, February, 2011.
https://www.noted.co.nz/archive/listener-nz-2011/close-to-the-bones/

de Jong, Lewis & Henry. Kai Tangata New Zealand, Roundhead Studios.
https://alienweaponry.bandcamp.com/track/kai-tangata

Kutia, Kahu. If You’re From Waimana, Why Are You White?. Salient, July, 2016.
http://salient.org.nz/2016/07/if-youre-from-waimana-why-are-you-white/

McLean, Mervyn. Māori Music. Auckland [N.Z.]: Auckland University Press, 1996.

Sellnow, Deanna. The Rhetorical Power of Popular Culture. 3rd Ed. Los Angeles: Sage. 2018

Westerman, Ashely. This New Zealand Band Is Trying To Save Maori Culture One Head Banger
At A Time. National Public Radio. https://www.npr.org/2017/12/05/567304737/this-new-
zealand-band-is-trying-to-save-maori-culture-one-head-banger-at-a-time