Moana vocalist in push to revive threatened Pacific languages through song

Olivia Foa’i this year released her first song in Gagana Tokelau, the indigenous language of Tokelau, a territory in the southern Pacific Ocean. Photograph: Olivia Foa'i

As a child, Olivia Foa’i would steal into the recording studio her father had attached to their Auckland home to listen to the best Pacific musicians as they performed. Her favourite memory was hearing her aunt as she sang in Gagana Tokelau, the indigenous language of Tokelau, a collection of atolls halfway between Australia and Hawaii.

“I remember looking at her like she was my idol. I’d copy whatever she sang,” says Foa’i, one of the Pacific’s most prominent singers and one of the main vocalists behind Disney’s Moana.