Dame Hinewehi Mohi DNZM (born 1964) is a New Zealand musician and producer, best known for her double-platinum album Oceania (1999) and its lead single "Kotahitanga (Union)", performing the New Zealand National Anthem in Māori during the 1999 Rugby World Cup, and as a producer for the 2019 Māori language compilation album Waiata / Anthems.
Mohi was born in Waipukurau in the Hawke's Bay Region, New Zealand, and is of Ngāti Kahungunu and Ngāi Tūhoe descent.
[2][3] The album, a collaboration with English producer Jaz Coleman, blended Māori language lyrics, melodies and taonga pūoro (traditional instruments) with a 1990s pop house sound.
[6] This proved to be a turning point, sparking a national conversation about cultural identity and the first language of New Zealand,[7] and is the reason why the anthem had begun to be sung bilingually since the early 2000s.
[9] Due to the success of the album, the project was revived in 2021, becoming Waiata Anthems Week, an annual celebration of music recorded in Te Reo Māori.
[13] In the 2021 Queen's Birthday Honours, Mohi was promoted to Dame Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to Māori, music and television.