Sisters Underground | |
---|---|
Origin | Ōtara, New Zealand |
Genres | Hip hop, R&B |
Years active | 1990 | –1995 , 2002
Labels | Joy Records/Sony Music New Zealand |
Past members |
|
Sisters Underground was a New Zealand hip hop and R&B duo best known for their 1994 single "In the Neighbourhood".
Group members Brenda Makamoeafi and Hassanah Iroegbu originally met aged 13, at Hillary College in Ōtara, South Auckland. Iroegbu was an immigrant from the US, of Nigerian, Arab and German heritage. By 1990 the pair were performing around Auckland as Sisters Underground. They were put in touch with music producer Alan Jansson, who recorded two tracks ("In The Neighbourhood" and "Ain't It True" with them for the upcoming compilation album Proud. [1]
"In The Neighbourhood" was released as a single, along with a music video by Greg Semu. The song peaked at number 6 in the New Zealand singles chart, and charted for 12 weeks. [2] In Australia, "In the Neighbourhood" peaked at number 62 on the ARIA singles chart, and spent 10 weeks in the top 100. [3]
In 1995 the duo performed in all six locations in Australia and New Zealand for the Big Day Out music festival, with "In The Neighbourhood" reaching #2 on Australian radio station Triple J's charts. [1]
They won Most Promising Group at the 1995 New Zealand Music Awards., [4] Unbeknownst to the pair, they were offered an album deal with Sony Music Australia through their producer Alan Janson. In the meantime the duo migrated to America and the album was never recorded. [1]
In 2001 the song was voted #58 in the APRA Top 100 New Zealand Songs of All Time list. The song was included on the Nature's Best 2 compilation CD released in 2002, and the music video was included on the Nature's Best DVD released in 2004. [1]
In 2002 TV2 used "In The Neighbourhood" for its station promotions. Alan Jansson remixed the song, with Makamoeafi and Iroegbu reuniting to rerecord the vocals. This sparked a renewed interest in the song causing it to be playlisted on radio. [1]
At the 2013 Silver Scroll Awards, the duo reunited to perform "In The Neighbourhood" as the closing number of the night. [5]
Brenda Makamoeafi (now Brenda Pua) lives in Australia, and Hassanah Iroegbu lives in Florida. [1]
Year | Title | Peak chart positions | Album | |
---|---|---|---|---|
NZ [2] | AUS [3] | |||
1994 | "In the Neighbourhood" | 6 | 62 | Non-album single |
2003 | "In the Neighbourhood" (2003 TV2 Mix) | — | — | Non-album single |
"—" denotes a recording that did not chart or was not released in that territory. |
The group have appeared on many compilations over the years in New Zealand. The following is a list of these albums that have featured tracks by Sisters Underground.
Sir David Joseph Dobbyn is a New Zealand musician, singer–songwriter and record producer. In his early career he was a member of the rock group Th' Dudes and was the main creative force in pop band DD Smash. Since then he has released the majority of his recordings as a solo performer.
The Mutton Birds were a New Zealand rock music group formed in Auckland in 1991 by Ross Burge, David Long and Don McGlashan, with Alan Gregg joining a year later. Four of their albums reached the top 10 on the New Zealand Albums Chart, The Mutton Birds (1992), Salty (1994), Envy of Angels (1996) and Rain, Steam and Speed (1999). They had a number-one hit with "The Heater" (1994), while their two other top 10 singles were a cover of "Nature" by the Fourmyula (1992), and an original, "Anchor Me" (1994). From 1996 to 2000 the group were based in England; they returned to New Zealand and then disbanded in 2002.
Evermore were a rock band formed in Feilding, New Zealand, in 1999, made up of three brothers Jon, Peter and Dann Hume. The band was based in Sydney from 2004 to 2007 and then Melbourne until they became inactive in 2014. Evermore released four studio albums: Dreams (2004), Real Life (2006), Truth of the World: Welcome to the Show (2009), and Follow the Sun (2012), as well as a self-titled compilation album (2010). Real Life and Truth of the World were their highest charting studio albums in New Zealand and Australia, while Dreams and Real Life received platinum certifications from Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA).
OMC, or Otara Millionaires Club, were a New Zealand music group, then duo, with vocalist Pauly Fuemana later becoming the sole member. OMC was best known for the 1995 hit "How Bizarre", named one of the greatest New Zealander songs of all time by the Australasian Performing Right Association. The full name of the band is a tongue-in-cheek reference to Ōtara's status as one of the poorest suburbs of Auckland.
Shakaya are an Australian girl group formed in Cairns, Queensland, in 2002 by Simone Stacey and Naomi Wenitong. The two met in 1999 while studying an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander music course and they had both been writing individually before they met each other. The girls were initially discovered in Cairns by Reno Nicastro and Michael Pearson-Adams. Nicastro produced most of the girls' songs and gave them free studio time for two years.
Urban Pasifika is a New Zealand subgenre of hip hop, that developed primarily among Pasifika New Zealanders in South Auckland. Drawn from alternative hip hop and R&B influences, it was quickly blended with Pacific Island or Māori instrumentation and traditional songwriting and singing and rapping in a variety of Polynesian languages, such as Māori, Samoan, Niuean and Tongan. The genre's genesis in the 1980s blossomed into a unique, globally enrapturing cultural scene in its homeland of Auckland, especially in the next decade. Urban Pasifika is one of the most popular music genres to arise from New Zealand, and helped cement Auckland's reputation on the world stage as a major cultural centre, and the most ethnically Polynesian city in the world.
Bachelor Girl are an Australian pop duo, formed in 1992 by Tania Doko as vocalist and James Roche as musician, producer and arranger. Their 1998 debut single, "Buses and Trains", was a top-10 hit in Australia and New Zealand; it peaked in the top 30 in Sweden and charted in the UK. The follow-up single, "Treat Me Good", reached the top 40 in Australia and New Zealand. Their debut studio album, Waiting for the Day, was released in 1998 and reached the top 20 on the ARIA Albums Chart and achieved platinum certification. Worldwide, Bachelor Girl has sold a total of more than 500,000 albums and singles.
Nature's Best 2 is a two-disc compilation album of 35 New Zealand popular music songs, numbers 31-65 on the APRA 75th Anniversary Top 100 New Zealand Songs of All Time. See Nature's Best for more information on the selection process of this list.
The Nature's Best DVD is a DVD release of 60 music videos to songs from the three Nature's Best compilation albums.
"Under the Milky Way" is a single by Australian alternative rock band the Church, released on 15 February 1988, and appears on their fifth studio album Starfish. The song was written by bass guitarist and lead vocalist Steve Kilbey and his then-girlfriend Karin Jansson of Curious (Yellow). It peaked at No. 22 on the Australian Kent Music Report Singles Chart, No. 24 on the United States Billboard Hot 100 and No. 25 on the New Zealand Singles Chart; it also appeared in the Dutch Single Top 100. At the ARIA Music Awards of 1989, the song won 'Single of the Year'. It was issued simultaneously in both 7" vinyl and 12" vinyl formats by Arista Records (internationally) and Mushroom Records.
3 The Hard Way are a New Zealand hip hop group formed in 1994. They are best known for their two New Zealand number one singles, "Hip Hop Holiday" from 1994, and "It's On " from 2003.
Proud: An Urban Pacific Streetsoul Compilation is a 1994 New Zealand hip hop and R&B compilation album. It was released in New Zealand by Second Nature Records and in Australia by Volition Records, and later rereleased in New Zealand by Huh! Records in 2000 and then on vinyl for the first time on 26 May 2023, again on Huh! Records. Proud has been described as "one of the most important NZ releases in the past decades" by New Zealand music industry figure Simon Grigg.
Strawpeople are a New Zealand band. They were created by Paul Casserly and Mark Tierney after they had met while working at the Auckland university radio station now known as 95 bFM. Over the years, Strawpeople has brought together various New Zealand songwriters, vocalists and musicians in a collaborative effort and achieved some success.
Stan Walker is an Australian New Zealand singer, actor, and television personality. In 2009, Walker was the winner of the seventh season of Australian Idol. He subsequently signed a recording contract with Sony Music Australia. It was on December 2009, Walker released his debut studio album, Introducing Stan Walker, which included the hit single, "Black Box". The album debuted at number three on the Australian ARIA Albums Chart and was certified platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA). It also appeared on the New Zealand Albums Chart at number two and was certified triple platinum by the Recording Industry Association of New Zealand (RIANZ).
Hayley Warner is an Australian singer-songwriter. In 2009, she finished as runner-up in the seventh and final Australian Idol, and was noted for her high-energy performances and vast vocal range. In 2013, The Daily Telegraph named Warner one of Australia's most accomplished songwriters. Warner's songwriting credits total over 11 times platinum in worldwide sales. Hayley co-wrote Grammy nominated artist Tori Kelly's single "Hollow", which was released 3 November 2015. After moving to Los Angeles, Warner signed a worldwide publishing deal with Warner/Chappell Music in 2015.
True Colors: The Best of Cyndi Lauper is a 2009 compilation album by Cyndi Lauper, released exclusively in Australia, New Zealand and the European Union as part of Sony Camden, a budget range of compilations by Sony Music.
Joel Little is a New Zealand record producer, musician and Grammy Award-winning songwriter. He is best known for his work as a writer and producer with artists Lorde, Taylor Swift, Broods, Sam Smith, Imagine Dragons, Ellie Goulding, Khalid, Elliphant, Jarryd James, Shawn Mendes, Marina Diamandis, Amy Shark, Goodnight Nurse, Noah Kahan, Years & Years, the Jonas Brothers, and Niall Horan.
The 2013 APRA Silver Scroll Awards were held on Tuesday 15 October 2013 at Vector Arena in Auckland, celebrating excellence in New Zealand songwriting. This is the first year the ceremony was held at Vector Arena, moving from its previous location of the Auckland Town Hall in order to accommodate more of APRA's 8000 New Zealand members.
"In the Neighbourhood" is the 1994 debut single by the New Zealand hip hop duo Sisters Underground. The song peaked at #6 in the New Zealand singles charts and is now regarded as a landmark single both in the emerging South Auckland music scene of the 1990s and for New Zealand music as a whole.
Broods are a musical duo from Nelson, New Zealand, composed of Georgia Josiena Nott on lead vocals, with older brother and multi-instrumentalist Caleb Allan Joseph Nott on production and backing vocals.