‘Good In Your Hood’ with INF – Onehunga, Auckland

Rapper and producer, INF, is driving me around his neighbourhood. He’d told me earlier in the day that his hood isn’t as rough as it was when his older brother was growing up. Even so, he points out the house he used to live in, and the driveway where he was jumped by a bunch of dudes who lived on the same street. We drive down another street, on the way to a favourite takeaway joint, it’s a street where a lot of the Crips live, he tells me. It’s a shame, he says, because red is his favourite colour, but he can’t wear that around here. At the very least he’ll be stared down, and told, ‘You’re looking bright today, bro.’

“I’m from Onehunga, born and raised. Especially when I perform on stage, I just say, ‘My name’s INF, I’m from Onehunga’. It’s just so, when people leave, they’ll go, ‘Oh, that guy, he’s from Onehunga’. On my passport, it does say, Birthplace : Onehunga.”

It’s such a thing in rap music, repping where you’re from. Why do you personally feel the need to tell people, even on stage, that you’re from Onehunga.

“You feel some sense of achievement when you’re on stage, especially if you’re not in Auckland anymore. For example Wellington, I’ll be like, ‘yo I’m from Onehunga’, and then I think, ‘Whoa, I’m from Onehunga, and I made it down here’. You feel a little bit successful, I just did music for fun, and for the love of it, and it got me out from where I’m from, and it keeps me out of trouble.”

So it’s not just stating where you’re from, but it’s stating how far you’ve come as well.

“Yeah, it gives you a chance to just buzz out for a bit. Like man, I came down here, I didn’t have to pay for this, I’m grateful, I’m real grateful.”

Is Smokey Beatz (producer/collaborator) from Onehunga as well?

“Yeah, he is, he used to stay with my Mum, but he’s my nephew technically, but we grew up close together so I just say he’s my brother.”

Because the three of you – yourself, Smokey and Spycc, have created your own sound now that people associate with Onehunga. Did you purposely treat it like, you’re trying to put on for Onehunga, you’re putting Onehunga on your backs?

“Not purposely, I think we were all doing our own thing and we all appreciate each other’s work ethic and creativity, and we all just get along anyway, and being from the same place holds us together even more. We’re like a little collective I guess, it kind of makes us special. When people do hear your stuff, they’re like, have you heard of these guys? They’re from there, they hold it down there, that’s their area.”

Did you all go to High School together?

“I went to Onehunga High, Spycc went to Onehunga. When I first met Spycc , I’d gone to the internet café to play Counter Strike, and I didn’t have any coins to play. So I asked my friend for 90 cents. He was like, ‘yeah man, I got you,’ not knowing that he had to ask someone else for the money. So he gave me the money, but I didn’t know that it was Spycc who had given him the 90 cents. The next time I saw Spycc, he came up to me, with these specific words, ‘Where’s my 90 cents c***’? I just put it all together, like oh man, I borrowed your money, not my friends’ money.”

“Then later on I’d see him at school. I used to take my discman, burn all my beats to CD. I’d take my discman and my cheap as Cash Converter speakers to the library. I don’t know why I’d go to the library cause you’re not allowed to be loud in the library. I’d go to the library, blast my beats, everyone would huddle around and have cyphers. Spycc came to me one day and asked me to make him some beats because they were going to perform at assembly. That’s how we met.”

I feel like there’s a specific sound that I associate with Onehunga now. But before you guys, it was a way more gangsta sound that I associated with Onehunga, R.E.S (Red Eye Society) specifically. Was that intimidating following on from them? Was there any pressure to sound a certain way?

“At some point I was thinking about that. Like, man, we sound way different to what they sound like. But this is us, though. We’re not like them, this is how we’ve grown up. Sometimes I think man, I want to make some hard as music like that, but then it just doesn’t feel right. I guess that’s how they felt at the time, and what they were going through. My background was not as rugged and rough as theirs. It’s a whole gentrification through music, I guess.”

Yeah, because I was going to ask, is it a reflection of the time – are times just less rugged in Onehunga, or is it a reflection of music in general being less rugged as well?

“I remember back when I was a kid, me and my friends would play outside with cardboard boxes, and wrestling on the lawn, and a group of Crips would come past and start swearing at us and tell us to go inside. But now, it’s all changed now. But I mean, nowhere is safe, you could go to the nicest area and some crazy shit could go down there. There is a difference now though, you don’t see the gang stuff as much.”

Even when I was in school, the OCS (Onehunga Central Style) gang was a big thing.

“That’s the thing too, we still get asked about that. I went to a bar/restaurant down in Waihi, and there was a guy there who was a Chef, and he came out, and was like, ‘Where are you from? Are you OCS?’ I was like, ‘Are you stepping me out?’ I felt like he assumed that I was part of that gang. He asked, ‘are you OCS’? I was like, ‘Ahhh medium rare, bro’. Like, are you serious? He was an older dude, but it’s funny to think that the mind state is still there.”

So essentially your generation grew up with a different mind state.

“Yeah. I’ve been through a lot of different experiences as well, so I guess since I was 16, just opening my mind a lot more. Just dealing with death, and friends dealing with their sexuality. Like when I was 15, I’d just throw the ‘f’ word around, and then I started realizing, that’s a terrible word. Just things like that. I’ve just learnt it’s not my place to judge people. I try and keep my mind as open as possible. Just treat people well.”

Who was it in your life that made you start thinking differently?

“Just friends, family, even new people that I’ve met through work and how they see things. I take qualities on board that I think could make me a better person. It’s probably helped me with my music as well, to keep an open mind.”

Your brother, J-One, is in R.E.S. What kind of effect did that have on you?

“Yeah, when I started to make music, I was way too shy I guess to show him what I’d written down. I had written my first rap when I was maybe 9. I was amped on it. I showed my sister, like, look at this! But I wouldn’t show it to him. And then one day, as I started making music, producing beats, I’d tell him to listen to my beats. He wouldn’t say anything at all. Everyone told me that’s what he was like, he didn’t say much. I’d say, ‘What do you think?’ He’d just have this blank expression and just nod. One day, he came home from work, I said ‘bro, listen to this’. I played it for him, and he goes, ‘That’s nice.’ I was like, ‘Yussss!’ I felt like I’d conquered the world ay, I was real happy. He is a hard person to impress, I guess. Especially when he comes to my shows, he’ll be like, ‘that was alright ay.’ He’ll just say a few words.”

Does J-One ever comment to you on how things in the music industry have changed, how they’re different now?

“He’s real happy ay. Every time I tell him we’re going to perform somewhere, he’s like, cool, you guys are cracking it. He’s always got good things to say about it. I really want him to start rapping some more.”

Yeah, you need to get a collab going man.

“That’s one of my ideas, to get him and Tek from R.E.S as well.“

Apart from being shy to show him your music, were you worried about the perception of being his brother, the expectations that come along with that?

“Yeah, I didn’t want them to look at me like, ‘Oh that guy is just J-One’s little brother. I didn’t want them to show me love just because of that. I wanted to earn it.”

I forget sometimes that he’s your brother. I think of you as INF, did you purposely keep it on the low, or is that just how it’s happened?

“Nah, that’s just how it’s happened. I don’t talk about it unless I’m asked, but at the same time I don’t mind talking about it. Sometimes when people are like, that’s J-One’s little brother, then that’s what I am, then I don’t feel like I’m my own person.”

OK, so now, lets get to where you’d take people if you were going to give them a tour of your favourite spots in your hood.

“The bridge, the old bridge that connects Mangere Bridge to Onehunga, on a nice night, we all go there, family and friends. We celebrate the first of every month. So whoever you’re with, just go to the bridge and hang out. Go and get dressed up, celebrate, talk about the highs you’ve had, and then list all your goals that you want to achieve in the next month coming.”

Every month you do this? So you better come with new goals then ay. You come with the same goals every month, they’ll be like bro, you’re playing up…

“Yeah, so that place. I like eating, so there’s a spot on Mt Smart Road that’s got real good fried chicken. Ages ago they had Street Fighter machines, and that’s where I stepped up my game. That spot and a dairy up the road from my Mums. We used to grab the milk crates, sit on them for ages, with one bag of lollies, or those $1 chips and just hang out, six or seven of us. Friends and randoms. That was our spot, the Arthur Street Superette.”

“There’s another takeaway spot, we call it 187, because that’s the actual address. We go there, because they had $3 combos, burger, chips and a drink for 3 bucks. That’s on Onehunga Mall Road. Then there’s Kong’s Kitchen, right on the corner of Onehunga Mall Road, at the bottom by the train station, they always have fresh chips.”

Do you remember Mee Waa’s? Did you ever go there?

“Yeah man, I used to play spacies at Mee Waa’s. That’s another one. Shit, that’s now called Rainbow Takeaways or something. It’s not the same, it’ll always be Mee Waa’s to me.”

Did you hang out at the Onehunga Depot much?

“Heaps of our friends lived out South, we’d walk them there, play some spacies, get some food and then we’d be off home. Mee Waa’s had the Street Fighter 2 special edition, with the two fireballs.”

Are there any other memories that stick out to you, that you’ll always remember?

“When I was five, I’d do the dishes so many times in one day, to fill up a cup full of coins, for doing the dishes. I’d take those coins to the dairy to play Street Fighter. There was this one guy, he was older than us, way older than me. And he came up to me and asked if I wanted a challenge at Street Fighter. Then I beat him, and I was sort of scared because I thought he’d give me a hiding. He tried to twist it, and tell me that I wasn’t playing properly. But every time I go up there, I think, this is where I won my battle.”

Was that a very real worry? Winning, but then being afraid that you’re gonna get beaten up as a result?

“Yep, all the time, that’s why I didn’t want to challenge people that were way bigger or older than me. Cos even if I did beat them, well I lose anyway, because I’m just gonna get a hiding after this.”

FIN.

(A shorter version of this interview was originally on The Wireless last year.)