Ladi6

He was championing them to be social entrepreneurs, to start these businesses that helped people socially.

So mum wanted to, like, she'd always been in the creative arts and she could see the impact that hip-hop was having.

So she wanted to go over to the States and see what they were doing and see how she could, like, her and my sister and see how they could take some things from there and bring it back to Aotearoa and build this, whatever it was going to be.

Essentially, they'd already done classes and stuff that was happening at the youth centre since I was a kid.

So we're jumping forward now.

I was in my 20s.

So they kind of knew that there was something there.

They just wanted to see if there was a connection that we could make with what was happening in the States.

And they got $26,000, nothing, nothing comparatively.

And so anyway, found out that they got this money, Steve Mahari –

I think his wife actually ended up with cancer.

So he ended up having to step out.

So there's no one to back up mum and just advocate for her and for what she was doing and advocate for his social entrepreneurship scheme that he had basically went to nothing.

And so then they had an election year and one of the things they pulled apart was this like $26,000 for hip hop.

And it was just story after story after story about mum and the waste of money and Scribe and what he was doing at the time and the trouble he was getting into.

And it just ended up being this huge thing in Christchurch.

I can't remember if it came here, but it must have come here because we had a billboard.

But it like...

deflated her completely, you know, took the light out of her eyes for any community work and she sold up everything, her and dad, and moved to Australia.

Really upsets me thinking about it, you know.