By now 15 years into a prolific and diverse career, Rei has captured the hearts of many with his smooth voice, ambitiously energetic performances and bilingual Māori wit. The Auckland urban/electronic musician, rapper, singer, producer, podcast host and music ambassador’s seventh album, ‘Moisturise & Decolonise’, sees him further connecting with his culture, while also taking the time to relax. Nur Peach caught up with him about it.

Since even before his first album ‘C.H.I.E.F.’ in 2015, Rei’s self-assurance has been notable. It may come as a surprise that 10 years on, Callum McDougall, the artist known as Rei, feels he’s only just beginning to come into his own.“I was making TikToks today and just writing up a whole bunch of captions, and one of the captions was; ‘When you’ve been making music for 15 years, but feel like you’ve only just found your sound age 31.’ I feel there’s a bit of truth to that. 

“The music that I’ve been making in the last year is kind of like the culmination of all my life and all my releases. I’ve been figuring out more and more over those 15 years how to express my Māoritanga in my music. What started with just dropping a few te reo words into my songs and talking about being a chief and stuff like that, turned into releasing songs fully in Māori. 

“The next evolution of that is not just making songs that are in Māori, but making songs that are Māori. Not just sampling taonga puoro or haka, but actually writing my own haka, making my own taonga puoro melodies from scratch.”

Haka Through the Pain, one of the new album’s singles, is a prime example of this intent, placing the haka as central to the track.

“I kind of figured out that I have to lead with the culture,” McDougall says. “I gotta represent through and through. Because I love music that you listen to it, and you know where it’s from. I love hearing artists that sound unique to their place in the world. That’s my favourite type of music. When you can mix that kind of identity and that kind of culture with music on a level that’s accessible to people that aren’t from that culture, and aren’t from that community, I think that’s when magic is created. 

“It’s kind of weird for me to be like making music like that, with the goal of making it accessible for non-Māori and people around the world, but my goal is to have it celebrated around the world. People love Māori stuff overseas. At all these shows people’s phones come out, they’re like, ‘Oh, wow, he’s gonna do a haka! I’ve never seen one before!’”

A Play It Strange alumni, Rei put his hand up to host the organisation’s first series of podcasts (On The Record with Rei), aiming to educate emerging musicians with entertaining interviews of a broad range of NZ music industry players. He has been a regular ambassador for Aotearoa and our music in trips overseas over the past three years, with a particular focus on Canada. He’s performed at the International Indigenous Music Summit in Toronto three times, at SXSW in Sydney each year since 2022, at a WOMEX Manchester showcase in 2024, and in August performed twice at the World Expo 2025 in Osaka, Japan, along with Huia and Kahurangi. 

He recounts one particular show in Ahousaht, an indigenous community in British Colombia.

“I was there on a tour in August, and I was playing this big family friendly, community type show, and the kids were getting into it. They were like, yelling out at me, screaming, ‘I love you!’ I was like the Māori Justin Bieber for them, it was crazy! 

“When I did my haka part of Toitu, I took my top off, and the little boys up the front, little indigenous Canadian kids, were all taking their tops off as well, and getting super excited and yelling back at me! I gave out poi to the audience and all the little girls were swinging around poi. Just having experiences like that inspires me to keep going and to be proud of what I do.”

Rei’s developing artistic versatility is on full display on his new album as he moves through electronic, acoustic and tropical soundscapes with dreamlike purpose and undeniable cohesion.

“It sounds cliché, but you gotta take people on a journey. I worked really hard on it, making it all flow together. Ninety percent of the people who hear my music are just going to listen to a few singles, they’re not going to actually listen to the whole album. But for the people that do listen to the full thing, it really just helps to create a cohesive experience for them, and it also helps tell the story of the album.”

Connecting the tracks are spoken interludes soothingly voiced by Jessica Aotea, intended to bring to mind a spiritual retreat type of setting. 

“It’s kind of like a decolonising day spa, if you will,” he explains smiling. “That was the vibe of the interludes. That’s why my friend’s taking me through like a guided meditation throughout the album – to guide this process of decolonising, while also looking after yourself and staying moisturised!”

That’s the simple background to the album title, ‘Moisturise & Decolonise’ – deconstruction paired with self-care. 

“It speaks to the duality of the album. I have a whole lot of the more kaupapa driven rap songs on the album. But on the other hand I’ve also got the more poppy reggae lovey-type ones. 

“Having that balance for me is important, because we can’t just be angry and rappy. We do have to figure out how to keep our kaupapa and keep our Māoritanga, but without having to be salty or angry all the time. We gotta have fun with it as well. And I think you can hear that fun and the lightness in the album. 

“That’s the physical and mental self-care that we’ve all gotta be aware of in this day and age, and we gotta make time for ourselves and take time to look after ourselves, and not just get too caught up in all the busy-ness and all the dramas and everything.”

Seeing Rei’s busy release and tour schedule begs the question of how he incorporates this self-care into his own life, as it’s undoubtedly a necessity for high performing artists like him.

“I don’t have a day job, so that means that I can actually put the time into releasing this much music. Not everyone has that luxury. Also working closely with my team, Chris [Chetland] and Huia [Hamon] at Kog Studios, has allowed me to release this much music, while also not burning out. 

“Chris is one of Aotearoa’s top mastering engineers, so I mix all my music with him. And Huia helps with the promo stuff. I just try and take time for myself when I need it. Go for walks in the bush, hang out with friends. I’m big into health and fitness as well. 

“In my live shows I like to jump around and dance around a lot, and do a bunch of kapa haka inspired routines in my set. So I’ll be going to the gym a lot. I even do stupid things like train on my spin bicycle while singing my set to help get my show stamina up. We got that idea from Taylor Swift! She does that, and she does shows for like three hours. So that’s another level… my show is usually 20 minutes to an hour, so I got a lot left to work towards!”

His live shows are undoubtedly impressive, highly active and ambitious. Incorporating complex, energetic dance routines and lights, McDougall projects a relaxed yet commanding stage presence.

“I’ve been a dance person,” he explains. “I used to teach dance when I was at high school for part time work, so that has been a big part of my life. My live sets are a culmination of me being a dancer when I was young, and also doing kapa haka. I do a lot of dance routines and everything with my dancers. We also incorporate a lot of kapa haka elements into our routines, and that’s something that I really love to do, and think it’s something cool that not really many other people do in their live shows. 

“We even have these light rakau. People call them lightsabers, but we use them to do rakau routines, which is like a traditional kapa haka thing. We do a modern version of that with these light staffs that project Māori designs onto them.”

His album’s tracklist features a colourful line-up of collaborators, including Swizl Jager, Chardonnay, Mikey Mayz and others. Many of the collaborators are from indigenous communities themselves.

“A reason for collaborating is that you share each other’s fans and help grow things together. But I also just feel like with this movement of modern, indigenous and Māori electronic-focused music, we can’t do it by ourselves. It has to be multiple artists to create a movement. 

“If it’s just one person yelling at the door, then it’s just going to get ignored. But when there’s me doing my stuff, and there’s Mokotron over there winning the Taite award, and Huia doing her thing, and Lady Shaka touring the world DJing and playing little Pacific tunes, it’s harder to ignore it. And it means that the industry is going to wake up to what we’re doing sooner rather than later.”