Matriarchitect transforming the system with indigenous intelligence

This article is part of series we are publishing this week focusing on indigenous women in New Zealand and the Pacific.

“Matriarchitect” is the term Teremoana Rapley uses to describe herself given all the different roles she plays, not only with her indigenous intelligent design firm Hefty Agency but also in the music industry and with her family.

“CEO or managing director or any other name for someone who’s leading a company just didn’t fit,” says Rapley.

The agency, which specialises in story and strategy while prioritising indigenous knowledge, is currently working on Ui, a Pacific focussed initiative in partnership with Manatū Taonga Ministry for Culture and Heritage, which Rapley says is “an artist lead systems transformation of the music industry”.

The project is looking to change the way musicians can market their music in a constantly changing digital landscape.

“It was inevitable that I would put together a proposition to challenge the current system that holds musicians,” says Rapley.

Over our two hour interview, we talk about her 36 years of creative experience and the many professional hats she’s worn, which has been both in the spotlight and out of it.

Beginning at 14-years-old as a singer for NZ’s first rap group, Upper Hutt Posse, her career in music has garnered praise from music legends likes Che Fu, who describes her as “the first lady of Aotearoa hip hop”.

As a woman of Avaikinui (Cook Islands), Jamaican and Kiribati descent, Rapley has managed to make a career in the creative industry leading with indigenous values at the forefront of her work. She says it wasn’t until recently that she stopped to reflect on the work she has done to date.

“I prefer to call everything I’ve done a layer of storytelling because telling people that I'm a musician and a songwriter and I'm a producer and a director, graphic designer and I do magazines, it gets too much for people.

“I stay focussed on being human-centered in what I do.”

Another aspect to her career has been recognising motherhood as a transferable skill into the workforce.

“It was until I had an interview with Coco Solid. She really made me think about what I’d been doing and she made me realise that I am a sovereign storyteller. Up until then I was just working and paying the bills, I wasn't thinking about my career.”

Check out our interview in the video below: