Rāhana Tito-Taylor (AKA WAIWHAI.) is a multi-dimensional musician from Tangiteroria (Te Tai Tokerau), with a vast musical whakapapa with threads tracing through sound traditions such as taonga puoro, creative music, psychedelic noise and avant-garde beats - think Hirini Melbourne meets Sun Ra meets Jeff Parker meets Les Rallizes Dénudés meets Ras G.
Rāhana is the founder of Noa Records, a pan-Moana record label with a core intent of platforming
Māori/Tagata Moana/indigenous alternative musicians and artists. In 2021 he received an Arts Foundation Springboard Award, an award which recognises and supports creatives with outstanding potential to pursue an arts career, and was tasked with composing the score for Nova Paul’s short film ‘Hawaiki’ which was part of the Sundance Short Films selection for 2023.
In 2024, WAIWHAI released ’Slowdown World’, a genre-bending body of compositions featuring Riki
Gooch, Parks, JY Lee, Cory Champion, Julien Dyne, Abigail Aroha Jensen, Janina Nana Yao, Alistair
Fraser, Navakatoa Tekela-Pule and Jeff Henderson. As well as performing solo and with his own groups under the monicker WAIWHAI., Rāhana has also performed as part of many groups throughout the years with the likes of LEAO, Pan Moana Group, Badcrop, Trioglodyte, and has more recently conducted under the Rangatuone conduction method (formed by Dr. Riki Pirihi) alongside Rangatuone ki Waihorotiu, a group of taonga puoro and string players from Tāmaki Makaurau. Rāhana continues to work in compositional, improvisational and music performance spaces, finding
unique ways to interface between the different worlds he inhabits through his creative practice while striving to summon new modes of connection and transformation between people and places.
