Biography

The Kumpnee are made up of 5 band members Josh Gage, Ronnie Lavender, Gino Hawkins, Stevie Taylor and Huia Ratapu. Their sound can be described as a blend of unpredictable urban rap and soulful harmony. They draw on their life experience growing up in New Zealand and living in Australia, creating lyrical flows that people can relate to, combining it with electro synth live instrumentation wrapped in layers of melodic harmonies that make you want to move.

A CHANCE MEETING
The Kumpnee was formed in early 2005 by New Zealand MC’s Ronnie Lavender and Josh Gage. Both went to university in Hamilton, New Zealand where they first met in 1999. At the time they were both performing in different groups but formed a friendship through their love of making music.

After finishing university they went on their separate paths and lost contact. It wasn’t until a few years later, with a chance meeting in 2005 in Sydney, Australia, that rekindled that friendship founded on music. Neither of them were doing much musically at the time so thought it would be a good idea to form a partnership. From then on they were known as ‘C Company’ a homage to the Maori Battalion.

They changed their name to a while later to ‘The Kumpnee’ after numerous times being mistaken for belonging to a certain gang starting with ‘C’ and they also wanted to incorporate and respect all of the ‘Company’s’ that were recruited in the Maori Battalion.

Josh and Ronnie have been steadily building up a base of fans in Australia and New Zealand over the past few years and was joined by Gino Hawkins early 2010 and then Huia Ratapu and Stevie Taylor in Early 2011 to make up the group.