Aaradhna performing at the 2006 Pacific Music Awards. - Rip It Up Archive
Founded in 2005, the Pacific Music Awards is the annual event that honours the achievements and successes of current Pacific artists, and pays tribute to artists of the past. The awards ceremony is an impressive showcase of Pacific music released in the past year, with live performances by a selection of finalists, and the presentation of various award categories. The 20th awards take place on 29 August 2024, at the Due Drop Event Centre, Manukau, Auckland.
Prior to 2005, the event then known as the Vodafone New Zealand Music Awards (now the Aotearoa Music Awards) included the category acknowledging the Best Pacific Music Album. This was the only official award celebrating Pacific musicians in New Zealand.
Three Houses Down: General Fiyah held aloft by Charlie at the 2019 Pacific Music Awards. - Topic
In 2004, the award was shifted out of the general music awards. This brought together a working group of Pacific people involved in the music industry, who saw the development as an opportunity and created an alternative home for the award. This led to the inaugural Pacific Music Awards in 2005 and the formation of the Pacific Music Awards Committee, which became the Pacific Music Awards Trust in 2007. This enabled the Pacific community to lead and organise the event themselves, and provided significant recognition for the breadth and diversity of Pacific music.
The Trust is in charge of event management, secures all sponsorship and funding, and maintains the relationships required to produce the awards event. The Trust is also involved in mentoring, and organises showcases and workshops throughout the year. In 2020, with funding received from Creative New Zealand, The Trust’s ongoing support to Pacific artists was formalised as the Tautua Programme.
Three of the current Trustees (Petrina Togi-Sa’ena, Reverend Mua Strickson-Pua, and Sina Wendt) were members of the original committee and remain involved in producing the annual awards night and supporting and nurturing Pacific artists year round.
Petrina Togi-Sa’ena, events producer and trustee of the Pacific Music Awards, sees the awards as a space to recognise the breadth of Pacific artists releasing music. “We always knew that the volume of artists were there,” she says. “The music was there, the talent was there, but I don’t think the profile and the recognition was. So that’s where hopefully we’ve been able to provide a space where there’s more acknowledgment of the artists, small and known.”
Performing at the Pacific Music Awards, 2019: Adeaze, who won the Pacific gospel artist award; Poetik. - Topic
The awards have evolved over the last two decades, in regards to the volume of artists, the growth of categories, as well as its physical space.
The inaugural event – with seven categories – was included as part of the Pasifika Festival in March 2005. The following year the awards moved to the Vodafone Event Centre’s BNZ Theatre in Manukau (now known as the Due Drop Event Centre). Since 2014, the even has taken place in the Due Drop Event Centre’s Sir Woolf Fisher Arena. The 2024 awards – the event’s 20th anniversary – features 20 categories.
The event – and the Trust – has received positive feedback from Pacific artists about its role in supporting and promoting music from the Pacific community. Diggy Dupé, who won the 2021 Pacific Music Award for best Pacific hip- hop artist (as well as the Aotearoa Music Award Te Kaipuoro Hipihope Toa for best hip-hop artist) says “speaking from my own experience, they’ve always been there. Ever since I got my first NZ On Air single funding for ‘Keke Boy’, people like Petrina have never stopped the support.”
Togi-Sa’ena says the 20-year milestone reflects the strength and the prominence of Pacific music more broadly. “What it says for the community is that we’ve got that depth of artists, depth of genre, presence and success.”
Sam V at the 2022 awards; he won the best Pacific Soul/RnB Artist award. - Topic
She recalls that during the initial working group phase there were questions such as “What is Pacific?” The Trust decided that artists would not be constrained to any specific definitions, and there should be the opportunity for the award categories to evolve with artists, and their corresponding genres, over time.
“We’re not wanting to say this is what it is and you have to fit in here,” she says. “It’s just whatever you’re doing, we want to celebrate you so we wanted it to be really open and so that categories could be broad.”
Diggy Dupé says the awards, after 20 years, can be seen as a symbol of the prominent presence Pacific music has in the wider New Zealand music industry. “We’re still here and we ain’t leaving anytime soon.”
This event is also a testament to Pacific values, providing artists with the opportunity to be celebrated amongst their families and community. Togi-Sa’ena says this is an element of which the Trust is especially proud. “One of the things that I love the most is that artists bring their children, their parents, their grandparents.”
She says it’s really special for parents to see their children being celebrated and acknowledged in this music business, which for some families is a career that is hard to fathom or understand.
Ladi6 at the Pacific Music Awards, 2018
Ladi6, another Pacific Music Awards recipient, considers the family environment fostered by the Trust as being integral to the awards. “My most cherished memory was attending the Pacific Music Awards with my whole family, including Mum, in 2018,” she says. “That night, we captured some of the most beautiful photos of her. One particularly striking photo ended up being the one we used on her funeral programme two years later. To me, the Pacific Music Awards is a place where my family can truly be themselves, creating treasured memories of joy and celebration.”
Reverend Mua Strickson-Pua, a longterm trustee of the awards, reiterated this notion, stating “the Pacific Music Awards celebrates 20 years of tautua serving our Pacific nations’ musicians, but we want to honour our musicians, their families, our communities, our nations. For we have not forgotten who we are and where we come from, mindful of the connections from our rich past and bonds of alofa and aroha to the next tupulaga [next generation].”
Shepherds Reign (left) and Team Dynamite (right, who received Flava Best Pacific Group) at the Pacific Music Awards, 2021
Togi-Sa’ena stresses, “We’re really artist driven and responding to artists. The event is therefore not possible without the support and participation of artists every year, and the Trust is thankful to all artists involved in past, and upcoming events, for their contribution to a night of celebration for Pacific excellence in the Aotearoa music industry.”
Finalists with multiple nominations in the 2024 awards include Shepherds Reign who are nominated in six categories, Aaradhna in five, and Diggy Dupé in four.
Pacific Music Awards: finalists and recipients, from 2005 on
Pacific Music Awards website
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