Benee & Muroki on changing the face of the NZ music industry

Benee has just released a new single, Green Honda, her record label Olive is bearing fruit with the success of Raglan-based artist Muroki and the signing of Christchurch indie band There’s A Tuesday, and she’s just been confirmed to play Coachella, one of the biggest festivals in the world. But as she tells Greg Bruce she feels the lows, as well as the highs, of her success.

“I just feel like a lot of people in NZ don’t like me,” says Benee, one of the most popular and successful New Zealand musical artists of her generation.

“When I first started, everyone was so excited and everyone’s super-keen to support new artists – which I love. I didn’t know they weren’t going to support me after.”

The 23-year-old says she tries not to look at the comments on social media, but it can’t always be helped, particularly on TikTok.

“None of it I’m sitting here crying about. I used to, pre-Covid, when I first started getting lots of hate, because of Supalonely starting to gain a lot of support. There was so much … and I was, like,’ God!’ and it’s not nice and it’s not something normal that people have to deal with. It’s quite an odd thing.”

The massive global success of Supalonely was not something she saw coming and though she says she was on a bit of a high afterwards and signed a publishing deal as a result, the wave that came with it meant that it wasn’t the winning-the-lottery experience you might expect.

“It was such a weird time. I don’t know. It was, like, bittersweet, and I guess that’s just something you don’t know until it really happens. I guess some people get used to it.

She says it has made her think about politicians, like Jacinda Ardern, and “how much sh*t she had to deal with”.

“There should be something that stops us from being that horrible to people. Teach your kids to be kind. Don’t send death threats to people. People are just people at the end of the day. I think people forget that, which is quite sad.”

Supalonely first blew up on TikTok and quickly became a hit all over the world, making Benee internationally famous, our biggest musical success story since Lorde. She sustained her success through the pandemic despite being largely unable to tour.

Her new single, Green Honda was released three days ago, and she’s set to play at Coachella in California in April, arguably the world’s biggest music festival.

Benee with Raglan-based artist Muroki. Photo / Dean Purcell

It’s a big moment in an already big career. But Benee, real name Stella Bennett, is also just a person.

Her mental health issues have been well-documented. She has spoken openly and frequently about her struggles with anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder, and the therapy and medications she has taken to keep them under control.

“I used to not want to leave the house. I would think I was going to die. It was that obsessive thinking that the worst situation was going to happen. I’ve definitely grown a lot since then, but you still won’t catch me in a supermarket by myself.”

She has learned a lot about anxiety in the past few years, she says. “You reach a certain age, and it just hits you in the face. As soon as you leave school and you realise you have to go to university or get a job and you’re, like, ‘This is now where you’re going to start your life properly, where it all kicks off’.”

At the same time, she feels like changing attitudes – particularly among people of her generation, who are more open to talking about issues like anxiety and the treatments that are available to deal with it – are making a difference.

“I feel like people wouldn’t have talked about that earlier. They would have been embarrassed or something, but I feel like it’s just normalising mental health and the stigma around it. I feel like it’s a good time to be f*cked up.”

She says that she, like everyone, has had her fair share of breakdowns since the onset of the pandemic: “It’s been definitely a mental trip for everyone, aside from what’s going on in your career or whatever. But just being able to tour last year gave us all that boost that we needed, to remind us how important music is and also reminding me how much I love it and why I do it. It’s like the best thing ever.”

One of the things her musical success has brought her is the power and resources to start her own label, Olive, which she founded in 2020, as a way of challenging the way the music industry operates.

“The music industry is dominated by men, and you will find that at most labels the people running the labels are all men, and they’re all old, so I wanted to make it different, make ours different. And the easy way to do that was to be like, okay, well, let’s make it female-run, because that’s cool, and then we need to give more roles to women and to queer people. I just feel like that doesn’t happen enough and it needs to happen more.”

Her first signing was 21-year-old Raglan-based artist Muroki. She contacted him through Instagram after falling in love with his song For Better or Worse.

When they later met at a music festival, she asked him to send her some music and signed him on the strength of that. The signing bore almost immediate fruit when his song Wavy went platinum in 2021.

His new single Sweet Lime will be released this week and he’s set to perform alongside superstars like Lorde and Flume at Christchurch’s Electric Avenue festival later this month.

“It’s one of the best things that happened for me,” Muroki says. “Benee’s my mate, so it’s just like a bit more personal level when you work with someone who’s a homie rather than just like a business. She’s been really helpful and she’s so supportive of everything. She’s had me from day one. She picked me up from out of nowhere.”

Olive has since added a second signing, Christchurch indie pop band There’s A Tuesday, who joined the label in 2021.

One of the things her musical success has brought her is the power and resources to start her own label, Olive, which she founded in 2020. Photo / Dean Purcell

Although it’s her label, Benee describes her hands-on role in the business as mostly A&R – as the person who finds the artists.

“What’s really nice is knowing that they’re doing really well and I’m not profiting off them. Some labels take a whole lot. That’s not my motive. I just love finding new artists and I love music and just being able to bring more people into your team and sharing your resources.”

Benee describes as the moment last month when it was announced she would be playing Coachella as “surreal”. The festival takes place every year in the Californian desert and attracts many of the world’s most famous musicians, along with three-quarters of a million people.

She says it’s her dream show. She attended last year as a punter and says of the experience: “The hype is real and it’s worth the hype. It’s insane.”

Writing music is her favourite part of what she does, she says – it’s what keeps her sane in the face of everything – but the excitement of performing is something else again.

The hate may never go away, and the anxiety might not either, but neither will prevent her having her moment in the sun.

“Being able to play shows and just f***in’ go crazy – it’s my favourite job in the world.”

Photography: Dean Purcell

Styling: Imogen Wilson, Nicole Pollard

Make-up: Lochie Stonehouse

Hair: Sean Mahoney

Top image: Knits and Muroki’s jeans and jewellery by Beach Brains, Benee’s own jeans and jewellery.

Middle image: Tops by Wynn Hamlyn, Baobei necklace. Muroki’s jeans by Beach Brains, jewellery artist’s own.