Urban Pasifika

Urban Pasifika

Urban Pacifika (also known as Urban Pacific) is a sub-genre of hip hop which combines American style hip hop or R&B rhyming and beats with Pacific Island or Māori instrumentation (such as ukulele samples) and Pacific Island or Māori language singing/rapping.

The roots of the sound, and the genre's name, however go back to the album Proud, created by Alan Jansson in 1993-94, where Jansson merged hip-hop beats with acoustic instruments.

The sound developed further in 1998 with the release of the album Urban Pacifika Records - Pioneers of a Pacifikan Frontier on an Auckland based record label started by Phillip Fuemana called Urban Pasifika Records.