By BLAKE METCALF-HOLT

 

FROM shooting hoops to spinning decks, Mitchell Hauxwell Te Paa has made a name for himself in the music scene toward the backend of his time in the United States.

Living on the West Coast for the last four years, the Yarragon local has surged to heights unforeseen this year, regularly securing bookings at festivals and hotspot clubs since blowing up on social media.

Under the name ‘HAUX’, Te Paa has raked in millions of views, sometimes north of 10 million, with a following of nearly 500,000 on Instagram and TikTok combined, as well as more than 150,000 monthly listeners on Spotify.

Originally venturing overseas to play basketball in his final year of high school, Te Paa moved to Salt Lake City, Utah halfway through Year 12 at Lowanna College in 2021.

Three years of junior college ball then followed at Sierra College, outside of Sacramento, California, where he began to reignite his childhood passion for DJing in the confines of his dorm room.

Te Paa said he found making music his release while being in the highly demanding and intense sporting environment that is the American college basketball system.

“I’ve always loved electronic music and then I started making it when I went to college, just as an extra hobby,” he told the Express.

Ripping into PlayStation video game DJ Hero 3 at a young age, Te Paa secured his first turntable when he was 10-years-old.

In high school, he also produced some “silly rap beats” on SoundCloud with his two mates, Hunter and Cooper, out in a shed in Coalville and across to Erica.

As his college basketball career was coming to an end, Te Paa began sharing some amateur tracks online, before he began to see traction by posting a series of videos with his girlfriend, Makena.

The concept was simple, with the tagline: ‘teaching my girlfriend how to DJ’.

What eventuated was an entire series of videos that has totalled millions of views and likes across Instagram and TikTok.

“We were just in the kitchen singing songs … and we were just like ‘we should film that’, and then I taught my girlfriend how to DJ just for some funny content,” Te Paa said.

“It was a complete accident the way we blew up when I posted that one night, and the next day it had like 20k views and I was like ‘oh my gosh, 20k!’ and I gained like five followers, but I was just so wrapped.

“They sort of caught on … and it took it to a whole other dimension.”

The sound that Te Paa was creating and the success of these videos caught the eye of Amsterdam-based music label, Actuation, securing a three-song deal and helping the Gippsland local land brand deals and collaborate with others in the industry.

This has also led to releasing his first signed single, Feel Your Love, with the deep house track attracting over 270,000 listens on Spotify since mid-April.

While sticking to the electronic dance genre, Te Paa wants to diversify his creative portfolio going forward.

“I make so many different things, I don’t like sticking to one blueprint,” he said.

Over the last few months, Te Paa has been flown out to music festivals to perform in front of thousands of people, along with his first headline show on Huntington Beach, Los Angeles in early May.

His biggest booking is yet to come, serving as an opening act to popular DJ, Ian Asher (of hit song Desire fame) this June at the already sold-out show at Drake’s: The Barn in Sacramento.

As a cybersecurity student at Sierra College, Te Paa could never have seen this coming, which has all transpired while still on campus, but is grateful nonetheless.

“This is a complete switch, I did not expect this at all,” he said.

“Even this year, I was just expecting to go home (to Australia) and pursue cybersecurity, but that’s completely changed now.”

As one of the most followed DJs heralding from Australia, more shows are likely to come for Te Paa once signed to a booking agency when back on home soil.

Te Paa is looking forward to returning to the country permanently, after an enjoyable few years entrenched in American culture.

“It’s been cool, it’s a different sort of life,” he said.

“I’ve been able to connect with individuals when I went to that festival, other influencers, which is great, that I personally followed and it’s just weird seeing people like that.

“It’s just been cool living on the other side of the world … I feel like there’s always something going on here, which I can respect, but it’s not somewhere I’d want to live (forever).”

During his time on the basketball court, Te Paa was able to come up against some formidable talent, especially in high school, including future NBA players Dariq Whitehead and Utah Jazz star Keyonte George.

One of Te Paa’s teammates at Salt Lake Academy, Dravyn Gibbs-Lawhorn, is a potential selection in the upcoming NBA Draft.

As a 16-year-old, Te Paa was a part of Warragul’s 2019 Country Basketball League (CBL) title over Southern Peninsula.