(I Need To) Put More Water in My Beans

In Tūranganui-a-Kiwa, Mara and Beto learn how their son Jamil found out about the birds and the bees in Brazil, while their kids talk about growing up black in Gisborne and having DJs for parents.

Content warning: This episode contains reference to sexual content.

Watch the video version of the episode here

In Tūranganui-a-Kiwa, Mara and Beto learn how their son Jamil found out about the birds and the bees in Brazil, while their kids talk about growing up black in Gisborne and having DJs for parents.

The Weiss dos Santos whānau have lived for many years in Tūranganui-a-Kiwa. Parents Mara and Beto are DJs. They perform under the name BrazilBeat Sound System and have toured Aotearoa many times, playing in festivals and night clubs. Daughter Jazz works in film production in Tāmaki Makaurau, and younger son Jamil has recently arrived there for university.

Beto was born and raised in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and Mara grew up in San Diego in the United States. Mara went to Brazil as part of an environmental conference, and ended up meeting Beto there. They lived together in Brazil for four years before Mara's parents (who had immigrated earlier to Aotearoa) asked them to come to Gisborne to have their first child. The family continued to move between Brazil and the US, but eventually moved permanently to Tūranganui-a-Kiwa in 2001.

Their arrival back to Gisborne was under the worst of circumstances. Sadly, they were called to leave the U.S. by the untimely death of Mara's brother Damon, and decided to stay on to help Mara's parents.

"We came back and had his funeral and everything, and then we returned to the U.S., but we just felt we couldn't stay there anymore, that we just had to come back and be with my parents and support them through this and be together as a family," Mara says.

Gisborne was a far smaller city than either Mara and Beto were used to. The move also came with a choice that Beto felt was necessary to make, prioritising fatherhood over his career as a musician, especially given his own relationship with his father. "For me, it was my kids was a priority more than my music."

Jazz and Jamil share on the podcast about how they feel they grew up being treated quite differently by their parents. In many ways, Jazz feels she broke ground for Jamil, "I took the brunt of the strict parents, and you were able to go out and drink when you were 15 and 16."

Despite what their peers believed, their parents' profession as DJs didn't mean they got to live a parentless, party lifestyle…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details