Ep 5 - Walking towards your culture with jen cloher

Jen Cloher is Maori (Ngapuhi & Ngati Kahu) and Pakeha. They are a song-writer and performer living on unceded Wurundjeri land in Naarm (Melbourne). Jen joins us ahead of her solo Australian tour in June and July.

We chat about:

• Being multiracial as opposed to biracial

• Growing up away from Aotearoa

• Those awkward and joyful moments when reconnecting to culture

• The “colonised critical parent

• What is a marae?

• Whanau is so much bigger than immediate family

• How their reconnection journey permeated their latest album, Ko Au Te Awa, Ko Te Awa Ko Au - I Am The River, The River Is Me

• Legal personhood of the Whanganui River

• Te Ataarangi and the Kohunga Reo (language nest) movement

• Being takatapui

Mixed Media:

• https://www.jencloher.com

• https://everybodystryingpodcast.com/

• Mana Takatāpui (Official Video)⁠

• Hirini Melbourne & Marlon Williams

Hosted by: Maria Birch-Morunga and Kate Robinson

Guest: Jen Cloher

Edited by: Maria Birch-Morunga

Music by: Mana Takatapui by Jen Cloher

Special thanks: Jen and Milk Records for letting us use Mana Takatapui in this episode