In Your Hood: INF

In Your Hood is a series that explores the neighbourhoods of prominent and up and coming Kiwi talent. What ’hood they rep, their memories of where they came from and how their surroundings have influenced them to get to where they are now.

Today Leilani Momoisea meets INF, a rapper and producer from the Auckland suburb of Onehunga.

[there]

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.

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.

There's three of you - yourself, producer Smokey Beatz and Spycc, that 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 ... I used to take my Discman to school, burn all my beats to CD, and my cheap as Cash Converter speakers to the library ... and 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 he and some mates were going to perform at assembly. That’s how we met.

Your sound is the sound that I associate with Onehunga now. But before you guys, I associated Onehunga with a way more gangsta sound, RES (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, 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 it’s all changed now.  Nowhere is safe, you could go to the nicest area and some crazy shit could go down, there's a difference now though, you don’t see the gang stuff as much.

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.

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

When I started to make music, I was way too shy to show him what I’d written. I wrote my first rap when I was maybe nine. I was amped on it. I showed my sister, like, look at this! But I wouldn’t show it to him. One day, as I started making music, producing beats, I’d tell him to listen, he wouldn’t say anything at all. He’d just have this blank expression and nod. One day, he came home from work and I played a beat for him, and he goes, ‘That’s nice.’ I was like, ‘Yussss!’ I felt like I’d conquered the world, I was real happy. He's a hard person to impress. Especially when he comes to my shows, he’ll be like, ‘that was alright aye.’ He’ll just say a few words. But every time I tell him we’re going to perform somewhere, he’s real happy, like, 'Cool, you guys are cracking it'....I really want him to start rapping some more.

Yeah, you need to make that collab happen..

That’s one of my ideas, to get him and Tek from RES as well.

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.

If you were going to give someone a tour of your favourite spots in your hood, where would you take them?

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.

I like eating, so there’s a spot on Mt Smart Rd 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 Mum’s. 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 Rd, at the bottom by the train station, they always have fresh chips.

Do you remember Mee Waas at the Onehunga Depot?

Yeah man, I used to play spacies at  Mee Waas. That’s another one. Shit, that’s now called Rainbow Takeaways or something. It’s not the same, it’ll always be  Mee Waas to me. Heaps of our friends lived out South, so we’d walk them to  Mee Waas, play some spacies, get some food and then we’d be off home.  Mee Waas 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 get coins to play spacies. 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. He came up to me and asked if I wanted a challenge at Street Fighter. I beat him. I was sort of scared because I thought he’d give me a hiding...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.

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