Tiopira McDowell: someone to celebrate in New Zealand Music Month

Dr Tiopira McDowell is best known in the music world as Mokotron.

But McDowell (Ngāti Hine) is also a senior lecturer and co-head of Te Wānanga o Waipapa at Waipapa Taumata Rau, University of Auckland. 

As Mokotron, he recently won the 2025 Taite Music Prize for his album WAEREA. 

While Dr McDowell doesn’t explicitly integrate music into his teaching, the values that shape his musical practice equally inform his approach in the classroom.

"Values such as creative expression, the affirmation of mana, and recognising te reo Māori and tikanga as taonga that carry us into the future, and that critical nexus between the personal, the political, and the spiritual," he says.

"My teaching definitely informs my music. My songs are often inspired by the work of my students and colleagues. I guess that's the challenge I'm now facing – how to bring together these two worlds. I definitely daydream about teaching MOKOTRON 303: A Critical Introduction to Māori Electronic Music."

WAEREA is described as a spiritual and cultural journey that integrates deep sub-bass and breakbeat-driven electronica with ancestral Māori sound. Independent Music NZ said it’s recognised as a “bold and uncompromising statement, reclaiming space through sound by intertwining whakapapa with contemporary narratives”.

The Taite Music Prize recognises outstanding creativity in Aotearoa New Zealand music, regardless of genre or commercial performance.

The award, presented at an event at Auckland’s Q Theatre, included a $12,500 cash prize from Recorded Music NZ. The prize, named in honour of the late music journalist Dylan Taite, highlights exceptional albums released in the previous calendar year.

Mokotron blends electronic production with te reo Māori and live taonga pūoro (traditional Māori instruments), to explore the sonic landscape of urban marae and contemporary Māori identity.

In a 2024 interview with RNZ Music, McDowell said the WAEREA project sought to encourage Auckland-based electronic musicians to move past cultural hesitation and establish a distinctive, localised musical identity.

“Are we really, as a nation, so uncreative that we have to basically appropriate everything from overseas? Do we believe in ourselves so little? Every great city has its own genre of music these days, and they’re always specific to an urban area. What about Tāmaki Makaurau?”

In receiving the award, McDowell stated that WAEREA was a response to questions around what it means to be urban Māori in the 21st century.

“When I write music, I want to create sound that, if heard anywhere in the world, is unmistakably from Aotearoa."

"I’m thinking of urban marae. I try to emulate the voices of the kuia who have run those marae and given me a space to learn my craft."

Alongside his contributions to music,  McDowell is an established academic whose research focuses on Māori political movements, activism, government policy and Treaty claim settlements.

His masters  thesis, ‘Riria Te Riri, Mahia Te Mahi’: the Politics and Development of Modern Māori Activism, 1968–78', examined the emergence of contemporary Māori activism in the context of late 20th-century Aotearoa.

McDowell has also published peer-reviewed work on topics such as colonialism, alcohol, and land loss in 19th-century Māori communities, including the article 'Taua Nākahi Nui: Māori, liquor and land loss in the 19th century' in MAI Journal.

"I don't typically discuss my music in my teaching, so when students do find out, it's usually in a dark underground club at 1am or on social media. They're usually pretty shocked. My students only really figured out what I was up to when I won the Taite Prize.

"But I include creative assessments in my teaching and supervision, so I hope they see that I take creative expression seriously, and that it can and should be part of their practice and careers."

Mokotron is also a finalist at the Aotearoa Music Awards on 29 May, in three categories: Album of the Year, Best Solo Artist and Best Electronic Artist. It will be the 60th anniversary of the awards.