South Auckland reggae artist, Sweet and Irie’s song Ban the Burn may be some 15 years old, but its message is as powerful and important today.
Ban the Burn, which warns against meth use, was first recorded in 2006, although an accompanying music video was not filmed and released until 2020.
“I’ve been trying to keep this message alive since then,” says singer/songwriter Ed Ru Ru. “I’ve got a social media group called ‘Let’s ban the burn Aotearoa Brother ED’”.
Founded in 2005, the band is led by Ru, who was born in South Auckland, raised in Otara, and spent time in the Cook Islands as a youngster.
The 2019/20 New Zealand Health Survey found 1.1% of New Zealand’s total population, or an estimated 45,000 adults, had used amphetamines for recreational or non–medical purposes, or to get high, in the last 12 months. Methamphetamine (meth) is one of the most commonly used type of amphetamine.
Meth use is of increasing concern in a number of Pacific Island nations as well, including Tonga and Fiji. Meth use can impact several crucial organ systems and cause long-term harm to the body, with users facing an elevated risk of heart disease, stroke, liver damage, immune suppression, and even Parkinson’s disease, and these conditions can be potentially fatal.
“I’ve helped a lot of people get off meth just from communications on my social media page,” says Ru. “I message people at 3 to 4 in the morning to see if they are alright and let people message me at 3 or 4am if they need support and it’s been working.”
He says Ban the Burn is “just a song that I put together. I’ve made merch (t-shirts, hoodies and masks with Ban the Burn message) so people can wear the message and share the message. It takes away the people’s negative attitudes towards you. The message says that I’ve given it up and here’s my korowai (design on the merchandise) to prove it. I have it all on my social media page.”
Beginnings
Sweet and Irie was formed following Ru’s music studies.
“I did a music class at Te Wananga Aotearoa,” says Ru. “I graduated with flying colours. I achieved 120 credits. It was telling me that I had something special, and I need to carry it on. So, I went home and made a street band – me and some friends at home, just played our music to ourselves to inspire us – our kids and family at home – till people like you came along, noticed us and acknowledged what we were doing. You came with your cameras, lights and microphones and made us feel like stars. So we carried it on from there.”
One of his favourite music projects is one he did for a primary school.
“I had five days to go and teach the kids at a primary school a song for the Warriors game. On Saturday, we went to the game and they went to the middle of the field and sang a song to the Warriors,” says Ru. “It’s the best project that I have ever put together, nothing to do with my music but more to do with sharing music with our babies.”
Inspiration
Ru was born in South Auckland and raised in Otara, and moved to the Cook Islands as a boy.
“It was very different being in the Cook Islands. I was a Kiwi boy who had never seen the ocean like that. I had never seen a big fish. I didn’t even know what a pole of a boat was. It was a totally new journey for me. It helped me with my journey of life today. I now know the island side and the Aotearoa side and that has helped me with my music today.
“Just seeing my family, my friends, my uncles and my aunties – all Cookies playing music -inspired me to do the same. But I’m not fluent in my language, I’m more a South Auckland boy, so I’ve taken my art and given it a 120% in the same way my whanau in the Cook Islands would perform our cultural songs. So, I try and make them proud in my way because they know I don’t speak the language – I’m still learning it. What I do is for my Cook Islands people, my mum, my dad and my grandparents.”
His creative process
“Creativity, I think comes from the man upstairs and time alone,” says Ru. “If you can sit there in a room by yourself long enough, you’ll start to create things inside your head. You and the man upstairs will start to have conversations and you’ll find your journey in life.”
The group has released two albums, Irie Inspiration and Localise It.
“I don’t want to write songs just to fill an album and have ten albums and only one album is any good,” says Ru. “I want to write ten songs that all mean something. So if it takes me 20 years to write three albums then that’s what I’ll do. I want three albums of beautiful songs that we can all relate to, that is all our journeys of life.”
They are working up a few new tracks.
“I have a new song on Spotify – it is called My Communication to You,” says Ru. “I have done some performances of it and have received some really good feedback. The message is me trying to apologise to the world if I have disrespected you in anyway. The best way for us to communicate is through bread and water. The video of this song is on my Facebook page.”
The business of music
Ru says the biggest challenge he has faced in his music journey is management, and that he has realised over the past 15 years “dodgy things have been happening”.
“Management can be the beginning of the end,” he continues. “To overcome this, we would bring the law in, bring lawyers. We don’t do it the way South Auckland would normally do it and put up your dukes. So, the only way to win is to do it the right way and get the law involved and get what is rightfully yours.”
Ru says he is now working to sort out financial matters, “registrations and stuff like that. Once we have all that sussed then we can make a good living. You just have to have the right management who are there for you.
“I think COVID made my music more out there,” exclaimed Ru. “I think I got more recognised through COVID. I did more free lives at home and entertained people through the COVID while people were locked up, frustrated and couldn’t get out of their houses. So all they could do now is to turn their phones on and there was this guy singing to them for the next two hours in the middle of the night, keeping them inspired.
“I started to get 30,000 to 40,000 views every time I did one, so just kept doing it all year. Now my views are 100,000 to 200,000 all through doing these live streams through COVID. Before that, I was just a guy people heard on the radio but didn’t know my face because management only promoted the music and not the guy’s face.”
However, he acknowledges COVID also hit the South Auckland and NZ music industry hard.
“A lot of our artists depended on it – the live shows they do to feed their families. I lost a few shows through COVID but I just didn’t let it affect me. I just decided to stay positive and keep playing lives (live music streams online). People were sending me stars and I was earning through that.”
editor@islandsbusiness.com
