Piripi Christie was taught the Maori language, customs and the old teachings of te kauae raro (jaw of earthly knowledge) and te kauae runga (jaw of heavenly knowledge). Piripi Christie has recorded his debut album Mo Ake released on Tangata Records and with the support of Te Mangai Paho. Piripi Christie was taught the Maori language, customs and the old teachings of te kauae raro (jaw of earthly knowledge) and te kauae runga (jaw of heavenly knowledge). Piripi Christie has recorded his debut album Mo Ake released on Tangata Records and with the support of Te Mangai Paho.Piripi is a young talented singer songwriter with an ability to compose in both the English and Maori language.

"I started to compose Maori songs in 1995 when I joined the Waitara Maori culture group (Te Roopu Kapahaka o Waitara)".

The album produced by Aaron Davey, features I Heke and He Mihi as well as 10 other songs and bonus remixes. Mo Ake is released to New Zealand retailers in October 2004.

Piripi's skills in traditional Maori performing arts and culture as well as his interest in contemporary forms of music and dance have seen him develop a unique creative original presentation.

Piripi has developed a musical show featuring singing, Kapa Haka, Hiphop and Brazilian - Capoeira styles as part of his overall live performance.

Tangata Records were first introduced to Piripi Christie whilst hosting a Maori song writing competition, which Piripi eventually won receiving a prize package recording the winning entry 'I Heke', released on CD compilation 'He Taonga Te Reo-Tahi'.

Te Mangai Paho funded a music video for the song, which has been given copious amounts of airplay on TVNZ.

Piripi entered another Maori song writing competition again winning a prize to professionally record another song 'He Mihi (E muramura Ana)'.

"Through blessing of the Supreme Being I have achieved in the Maori music industry with the next level of achievement to produce a CD album of personal expressions".

Piripi recently performed in Tahiti representing Aotearoa as guest of the Tahitian Arts Society Himene Patitifa along with 20 other artists from around the World.

Piripi will have an album launch in Rotorua in October and perform at selected events, which fits in well with his 'day job' as performing arts tutor for Te Wananga O Aotearoa.

A video is also being scheduled for production. The album is distributed to all record retailers nationally and online by maorimusic.com from Monday 11th October.