The newest member of the New Zealand Music Hall of Fame says people are hearing his music all the time without knowing it. Richard Nunns says samples from an album recorded in 1993 are turning up everywhere.
Jazz musician Nunns and the late Hirini Melbourne, a Tuhoe school teacher, were honoured at the APRA Silver Scroll Awards in Christchurch for their work in reviving taonga puoro or traditional Maori instruments.
In collaboration over 20 years, they built traditional Maori instruments based on originals that had been lying silent in museums for decades.
Working with master carver Brian Flintoff, they worked out how the instruments had been played, and then taught countless others to play them, as well as writing songs using the taonga puoro.
Nunns says people are hearing his music all the time without knowing it.
He told Waatea News that samples from their 1993 album, Te Ku Te Whe, are turning up everywhere from movies to All Blacks games.
While it's a battle getting people to pay for using the material in new ways, he said the samples means the music is being embraced.
