Mai FM listeners were moved to tears by the Morning Crew's te reo Māori version of K-Ci & JoJo's hit 'All My Life' in celebration of Te Wiki o te Reo Māori (Māori Language Week).
The radio hosts wrapped up the week with their usual Friday segment, but this time they sang a waiata that had been custom translated into Te Reo by friend of the show Hemi Kapa-Kingi thanks to Māori broadcast funding agency Te Māngai Pāho.
Video of the song released along with footage of the team's journey to singing in Te Reo was shared online over the weekend, prompting an emotional response from fans.
"This means so much! Our language! To tatou Reo…. Amazing," one Instagram user wrote.
"Made me laugh and cry and sing along," said another.
"It's amazing!! I got a little emotional watching this," wrote a third.
One commenter asked the hosts to "please sing this version at my wedding", while another told them: "You need to do more Te Reo songs please!"
"If K-Ci and JoJo heard this beautiful Te Reo version they would be blown away. Absolutely amazing guys," one comment read.
Breakfast host Tegan Yorwarth said the song had a new impact on her once it had been translated into Māori .
"I felt like all of sudden I was singing it differently. I feel like I had to sing it a certain way because it was in Māori - a bit more powerful, deeper, more poised," she said in the video.
"This was uniquely translated for us to do and it was something we all got to be a part of. I'm very much at the beginning of learning our language and being proud of our language," she added.
Meanwhile, Yorwarth's co-host Nickson Clark said the translation had made him "fall in love with the song all over again."
"It just felt a bit special," he said.
Jordan River echoed the sentiments of his fellow hosts, adding: "It's something to share and it's something unique to this country, to this whenua to who we are, what makes us."
"How cool is it that the indigenous people here want you to share in that, and want you to try and join the whanau as it were?" he said.
