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Keep On Moving With Moizna

© Anne-Marie de Bruin

Moizna is a promising group of young Auckland-based Pacific Island R'n'B/Hip Hop singers on Phillip Fuemana's Urban Pacifika Records (UPR) and BMG. The group is made up of the sweet soul voices of sisters Alesha and Belle (Isabelle) who are Niue/Cook Islander, Rita who is Chinese/Samoan and Maureen who is Samoan. Have you guessed? They got the name of the group from their own names.

Moizna released the gold single "Just Another Day in New Zealand" last year and are now back with the followup, "Keep On Moving" which is receiving substantial airplay. They are currently recording their debut album, (due out later this year) and are looking forward to its release. I talked to Alesha recently to get an inside look on what's happening with Moizna and what it's like to be a Young Urban Pacifikan in Aotearoa/New Zealand today.

You and your sister Belle wrote "Keep On Moving." Is that how most of your songwriting gets done?

"No, it's usually a group effort, but seeing that Belle and I are sisters and it's easier for us to get together to write our songs, me and her just get together and take it to the girls and see what they think. And we just like all add our own pieces to it, but "Keep On Moving" was just written by me and my sister."

Did Phillip Fuemana help out on that song too?

"Yeah, he helped out a bit with the production side but it was mainly me and my sister."

How did you think of interpolating the Hall and Oates Man-Eater song in Keep On Moving?

"We were suggested it as an idea by Phil to use for one of our songs and we were thinking about and we thought 'oh yeah, that would be cool,' but we just needed to find words to go with it because the melody was there."

Do you like to put messages in your music?

"Well not really — but sometimes we do."

Are all of the members of the group from musical families?

"Yeah, our parents grew up singing and performing in the Islands as they do and they just passed on what they knew to us. Maureen's Mum is pretty musical, she sings in the Church choir, and Rita's Mum, her brothers and all that play instruments, and so does our family."

How did your group get together?

"It was actually for a school talent quest. The girls asked each other if they wanted to like all sing together for the school talent quest which they won. It was actually Maureen and Isabelle who got together first with their talent quest because they went to the same school, and it was for another talent quest, the Coca Cola Street Quest, where they asked me to come and in and sing with them and then I asked Rita so that's how we all started together."

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