Our story goes like this:

Man meets girl in Rarotonga, falls in love, gets married, they have 12 babies( no tv !)  .. their family sing alot to amuse themselves..someone picks up a guitar, uke, drumsticks…and the rest (as they say) is HISTORY.

We are the Maoate Anau from Muriwai Beach. We started out singing gospel songs at church and like most PI families, went from singing at church to jamming it at home.

When us kids were small, we grew up singing to Raro cd’s and tapes as our parents didnt listen to radio stations in our house. All us children were raised up speaking Cook Islands Maori till the age of 6 at which point…we all jump on the dinner table at home and start our formal education in English (none of us have been to a normal NZ school-we are all homeschooled). As we have grown older, we have continued to keep our mother tongue alive and have built a website, www.cookislandslanguage.com , to share our beautiful language with the rest of the civilised world. Pu..weeee!

Our early influences have come from Cook Islands superstars such as the divas Te’Ata Nga and Tara Kauvai; the man himself, Ephraim Taokia; and the Princes of Panapana ,koia oki the  Vaimutu Boys and Virgin Voyage. These artists have shaped our foundations and instilled in us the beats which keep our pulses running.As we have grown, we have expanded to other genres of music across a broad and very wide spectrum. This includes country, reggae, blues, pop, hip-hop, spanish, nesian and good old fashion kiwi. From Eagles to Timberlake to 50cents to Nesian Mystik to Koloha Kai…we have experianced them all.

2012 is an exciting year for us. To kick it off, on Waitangi Day, February 6, we are gigging it with some of the big names in the New Zealand music industry. Anika Moa, Ardijah, Moana and The Tribe, Maisey Rika, Nat Rose etc and others. Wow…cant wait. Should be the shizz man! Click on the following graphic to find out more details of the Muriwai Waitangi Day Festival.

And this year, we will release our own compositions in our yet to be confirmed third recording “Muzacon 3″. Keep an eye out on our website and our Facebook page. No doubt, you will hear it through the coconut wireless.

Ne’ways, thanks for the heads up in advance. Hope to be jammin it somewhere near you soon…hook up to our Facebook page to find out whats the haps at the day-to-day level.

Until then, ka kite ra

Keeping it Fresh…

Arbs and The Crew@Muzacon

Mob 027 512 5727