NZ On Air Music and Te Māngai Pahō have announced the recipients of their initial round of Waiata Takitahi – the new co-fund collaboration between the funding agencies for songs with a minimum of 25% te reo Māori lyrics.

Congratulations to the artists and groups, particularly Bic Runga who is involved with three projects, and Emily Rice and Matiu Walters, who are part of two projects granted up to $14,000 in this round to bring new bilingual songs to Aotearoa audiences. 

The ambition for this new fund is to enable brand new songs targeting mainstream audiences incorporating te reo Māori. The scheme looks to invest in bringing more te reo Māori songs to the mainstream, and provide support for artists who may need language assistance to confidently release bilingual content.

The grant can be put towards the costs of recording a single song, creating video content and other visual collateral, and putting resource towards promotion, publicity and marketing for the single release. Funds can also be used to pay for the services of a te reo Māori language consultant. There will be a second Waiata Takitahi round towards the end of 2021, with the deadline November 11.

More information on Waiata Takitahi can be found here.