This Dawn Raid doco is missing something big

How could they leave out the label's best act?

• On Sunday night, I saw Dawn Raid, the documentary about the infamous South Auckland record label. It’s really good! Go see it! Afterwards, I got into my car and started playing one of only two CDs I own. It reminded me that Oscar Kightley’s film is missing something massive, and it needs to be talked about. Let’s go…

I remember the smoke. I remember the presence. I remember the attitude. I felt scared, but I couldn’t leave.

I thought: Who the fuck are these guys? I also thought: I need to know everything.

The next day, after recovering from DJ Sir-Vere’s Hip-Hop Summit, a 2001 rap festival held in and around Aotea Square, I emailed Rip It Up magazine’s editor and asked if I could interview them. I’d just come out of journalism school. I guess you could call it my first pitch, and I was keen as.

Called Red Eye Society, the group was part of Dawn Raid’s burgeoning record label that, at the time, was on the up thanks to New Zealand’s hip-hop boom and a roster of really incredible acts, including Adeaze, Deceptikonz and Aaradhna.

Rip It Up said yes, but told me to wait until Red Eye Society were releasing an album. Back then, the group wasn’t well known and had just a handful of singles and guest appearances to their name. They were mysterious. No one even knew how many members they had.

They were rough and rowdy and raw, but holy hell, they were good. Here’s their signature tune, the one everyone remembers:

To cut a long story short, it didn’t happen. I never got to write that story for Rip It Up. I got a full-time gig at a North Shore newspaper, and then Rip It Up’s editor changed. So I just gave up on it, and never thought it would happen.

Until 2017.

Red Eye Society were well and truly done, and hadn’t performed or released any music for a decade. But for some reason, I started thinking about them, and couldn’t stop. They’d only released two albums, their self-titled debut with Dawn Raid in 2004, and 2007’s Absolute Epoch when they’d switched labels to Breakin’ Wreckwordz.

I wondered what had happened to the group’s members. They broke up just after that incredible second album was released, surrounded by all kinds of rumours. It felt like a story was waiting to be told.

Thanks to some encouraging editors at NZ Herald, I spent eight months slowly piecing together the story of Red Eye Society. It took weeks to track down rappers who no longer rap, record label execs who no longer run record labels, and record producers who no longer produce records, and persuading them to talk about their experiences.

I pursued this story like I was possessed. But my hunch proved correct. Every time I interviewed someone about Red Eye Society, they’d get the same look in their eye. It was a kind of glint, like you were sharing a sacred secret with them.

Everyone loved them. But everyone was still intimidated by them. It seemed Red Eye Society’s reputation was well-earned, and continued long after their demise.

DJ Sir-Vere told me: "The history of that group is real shady. What is the truth of R.E.S? I have no idea."

The Spinoff’s Duncan Greive told me: "They were dangerous. The impression I had ... is that they were uncontrollable. Really talented, but they had a true menace about them."

Dawn Raid’s Andy Murnane told me: "They weren't troublemakers, but they wouldn't turn trouble down.”

What I found was a strong fanbase that still loved this group. Supergroove’s Che Fu and Karl Stevens both named Absolute Epoch among their favourite local hip-hop albums of all time. David Dallas told me that seeing them perform at the Hip-Hop Summit sparked his desire to start rapping.

DJ Sir-Vere named Tech Swift, or Tek, as the best rapper New Zealand’s produced.

"He's a brutal human being. He is full on. His life has been crazy. It felt like he was always venting his whole life (through his music). He was really, brutally honest,” said Sir-Vere. He told me a story of one of them chopping a finger off in a night club fan.

He told me another story about going out for drinks with the group one night that concluded with them all in jail.

Finally, in February of 2017, the story was published in Herald on Sunday. I didn’t get to talk to the group’s two remaining members, Roy Prasad and Peter Lopes - I was warned not to approach them. But I interviewed others who were in the group, and people around them.

I was really proud of it. It felt like a group that had a crucial role to play in New Zealand’s hip-hop history was finally getting the recognition it deserved. I felt like I’d done something right. You can read it here.

You can probably guess where this is going. When the trailer dropped for Oscar Kightley’s Dawn Raid movie, I assumed Red Eye Society would be involved. Surely they’d include one of their songs, perhaps an interview. Maybe they’d finally get Prasad and Lopes to talk?

Nup. Nada. Nothing. There’s not a single scene featuring Red Eye Society in Dawn Raid, a film that clocks in at 98 minutes. Aaradhna, Adeaze, and the four members of Deceptikonz get plenty of air time. I get it. They were huge. Savage is a superstar. Mareko is one of the best rappers in New Zealand. Elimination still slaps. Fallen Angels remains part of New Zealand hip-hop history.

But Red Eye Society’s absence just feels off. I’m not the only one with a problem with the Dawn Raid doco. Both members of Adeaze have beef with it, and Aaradhna has spoken out about it too. It seems plenty of stuff was left on the cutting room floor, including an entire group that was with Dawn Raid from the start.

That’s a crying shame. If you’re still reading, I implore you to listen to Witness. It’s the third song from Absolute Epoch, Red Eye Society’s second and final album. It’s the song that came on in my car after the film, from one of only two CDs that I own, and the track that inspired me to write this piece.

It’s ferocious, an absolute monster of a song. Those drums sound like an approaching army. Those horns flatten me every time. Prasad and Lopes absolutely destroy their verses. Then Mareko comes in and takes it to another level. This song is insanity.

It’s a track that takes me back to the first time I saw Red Eye Society live, surrounded by smoke, a bruising display by a group of incredibly gifted rappers, delivering a performance so awesomely sinister it’s stayed with me for nearly 20 years.

This song makes me think: some bad muthafuckas deserve their time in the sun, and this is one of those times.

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