Chris Faiumu died suddenly on Wednesday. Photo: Bruce Mackay/The Post
A New Zealand hip-hop great says he will be forever proud of Fat Freddy's Drop founder Chris Faiumu for taking Wellington and South Pacific music to the world.
Chris Faiumu, also known as DJ Mu or Fitchie, died suddenly on Wednesday.
Music industry voices say he was a pioneer of the New Zealand music scene and a force behind Fat Freddy's Drop, one of the most successful bands to come out of Aotearoa.
Bill Urale, also known as King Kapisi, said his death was a huge loss for the music community.
Urale - originally from Wellington's south coast, where Faiumu lived - said they first met in the 1990s, when he was about 18, recording demos at radio station Radioactive.
He was surprised to see another young Samoan DJ and engineer at the station.
"We were just going up there and we were, like, 'Whoa, the engineer's Samoan', and I said, 'Sole, what's your name?'
"He was, like, 'Faiumu', so I was, like, OK cool'. It was just nice to meet another Samoan brother, who was out there just doing their thing."
Urale said that connection lasted throughout both their music careers, as he watched Fat Freddy's Drop take off.
"Just thinking that my brother Chris was the backbone of the whole group, it was always a phenomenal thing for me.
"I was, like man, super proud of my brother, and still super proud of what him and the Fat Freddy's boys have been able to achieve across the world, representing Aotearoa South-Pacific music worldwide."
Fat Freddy's Drop came onto Wellington's music scene with hypnotising live improvised performances, before breaking out big with their 2005 album Based On a True Story.
'Wandering Eye' was a huge single and the band toured regularly overseas, gaining followings in Australasia, Europe and North America, and selling out to large concerts and festivals.
Urale said Faiumu was one of New Zealand's best DJs, engineers and producers.
"A lot of DJs DJ, but they don't make their own music and they don't produce their own music, so when you think about the body of work that Mu has been able to make, it's phenomenal and also, from Wellington, it's gone worldwide."
Music journalist Nick Bollinger said DJ Mu devoted his life to music, starting out as an avid record collector.
In Wellington, he DJ'd in bars like the Matterhorn and Bodega, then started creating his own rhythms on an MPC sampler.
He created the baselines and beats that the rest of Fat Freddy's Drop would build on, Bollinger said.
"He was usually back a bit and at the side, hunched over his equipment. It was hard to know what he was doing there some of the time - he was busy, but it was mysterious.
"He wasn't the singer, he wasn't the guitarist, he wasn't the saxophone player...but without him, there would have been no Fat Freddy's.
"He was the roots of the thing - the foundations."
Despite their success, Fat Freddy's Drop never signed to a major label.
Bollinger said Faiumu never compromised on the independent spirit that helped make the band unique.
RNZ music programmer and longtime friend Zen Yates-Fill knew Faiumu in the 1990s, when the two worked together in a record store, and he would attend some of the band's mesmerising gigs.
He said Faiumu was a connoisseur of music, encouraging friends and listeners to discover new sounds.
"He was a navigator for music, leading us into waters that we didn't really know from this country."
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