More than four decades after a Taranaki club recorded it on a shoestring, Poi E has been voted the most beloved homegrown song in the country. The Pātea Māori Club recording topped the RNZ Waiata 100, a nationwide public vote that drew more than 65,000 votes and asked New Zealanders a simple question, which local song do you love the most.
The result was revealed on Friday 10 July, the day of the Matariki public holiday, during a special broadcast on RNZ National hosted by Kara Rickard and guests. The countdown ran through the afternoon, working up through the songs that shaped how the country sounds. Poi E finished first not only on the main list but also at the top of the shortlist of waiata Māori, the songs sung in te reo, making it a clear double winner on the day.
For a song released in 1984, that staying power is remarkable. Poi E reached number one in early 1984, held the top spot for four weeks and spent close to half the year on the charts. It has never really left the national memory since, and this vote confirms it has crossed generations rather than fading with the one that first bought it on vinyl.
The story behind the song is as loved as the song itself. It grew out of a vision by Maui Dalvanius Prime, a Pātea entertainer who wanted to make contemporary pop that would reconnect young Māori with their language and culture. According to RNZ, Dalvanius took an intensive te reo course and sought out the respected composer Ngoi Pewhairangi in Tokomaru Bay, on the East Coast, to help him write words that carried real weight. Pewhairangi wrote the lyrics, and Dalvanius set them to an arrangement that borrowed from the hip hop and electro sounds arriving from overseas at the time.
It was not an easy sell. Radio largely ignored local music in the early 1980s, and a track sung entirely in te reo faced an even steeper climb. RNZ reports that Dalvanius recalled being told he would get nowhere “without an ethnic sound that came from our background”, advice he took to heart. What turned the song into a phenomenon was a homemade music video, featuring the club in kapa haka costume performing poi alongside a breakdancer in a puffer jacket, television coverage and a groundswell of support that radio could no longer ignore.
The timing helped cement its place. Poi E arrived just as the first kōhanga reo, the Māori language preschools, were being set up, so a whole generation of children grew up with the song as part of their earliest years. It has been handed down at family gatherings, school events and sports grounds ever since. The song found new audiences again when Taika Waititi used it in his 2010 film Boy, and a 2016 documentary told the full story of how it was made.
Dalvanius did not live to see this latest honour. He died in 2002, aged 54, having spent his later years championing Māori music and the return of ancestral remains to New Zealand. Ngoi Pewhairangi, whose words gave the song its heart, died in 1985, not long after the recording became a hit. Both are remembered as much for their generosity and vision as for the song that carries their names.
The Waiata 100 was run by RNZ with support from the music industry, and the longlist stretched across decades and genres, from Split Enz and Crowded House to Fat Freddy’s Drop, Six60 and a wave of newer artists. Voters were not asked to pick the most important song or the best written one, only the one they loved, which is why the final list reads less like a critics’ ranking and more like a national mixtape. Older waiata sat alongside recent chart hits, and songs in te reo sat alongside songs in English, which is roughly how most New Zealanders actually listen.
That a te reo song came out on top, chosen by tens of thousands of ordinary voters, says something quietly hopeful about where the country sits with the language. Poi E was once a novelty that struggled for airtime. Now it is the song a broad cross section of New Zealanders name first when asked what they love. The full countdown, including the leading waiata Māori and the songs that filled out the top of the list, is available on the RNZ Waiata 100 page.
For a song built to bring people back to their language and their marae, ending up as the nation’s favourite is a fitting result, and one that landed neatly on Matariki, a time set aside for remembering those who have gone and looking to the year ahead. Ngoi Pewhairangi and Dalvanius are gone, but the song they made is still doing exactly what they hoped it would.
What is your favourite New Zealand song, and where does Poi E sit on your list? Share your memories of it in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
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