DJ | Papakura

“When I met this beautiful young lady on the Fuller’s cruise on the boat, going back to Waiheke Island, she made my life turn around, and she told me there’s a better life than being in the gang, and she opened my heart up.

She opened my life to realise there’s good people out there, instead of bad people, and I’m going to miss her, because I can’t be with her anymore, and she’s awesome.

She taught me to be safe, be positive about myself, and she opened me up to speak to people. I don’t speak to people that much, because I couldn’t trust myself and I couldn’t trust them, but she came along and said you can only try to be yourself and open your heart up and things like that, instead of ignoring them, and being bottled inside.

A couple of years, or more than a couple of years back I was in the gang, the Head Hunters. That was a few years back, and my uncle, he was the president of the Head Hunters. They call him Big Bird, One Eyed Willy because he only had one eye, and he was our president, and Wayne, and none of this place was like this. I’ve been in a few gangs. One was called the GI Gestapo, before the Head Hunters. I had a hard life with my family, with the Heads. One day, things didn’t go right. We had a scrubble with the Black Powers in this little area. Something went wrong. Don’t want to bring that one up, because it was a family member who died on that day, on the other side of the gang. He was close to my nana. It was my nana’s nephew. Dwayne. He died in this area, just by the library, trying to get on the back of a ute. It stalled, and he fell backwards, and killed himself, and I feel responsible for what happened because I was in the Heads then, but I found a life, to be myself. I wear my colours inside now, and I’m proud of it. I don’t have to wear it on the outside anymore, because I was touched by a woman.”