Matty J Ruys, aka Matty J outside his old house in Otangarei.
Matty J Ruys, aka Matty J, has lived in various affluent parts of the world.
But every time he returns to New Zealand, a drive through poverty-stricken Otangarei is on the agenda.
After all, this was where his humble beginnings led to a successful career as an RnB hip-hop artist and producer.
Last month Matty made a fleeting visit to prep for the release of Beautiful Mess – his first solo album in 30 years.
“It’s a squeeze-in trip this week, getting things set up. But I always come up to visit my mother, who’s now in a rest home,” says the Melbourne-based artist who returns about four times a year.
It was 1996 when Matty rose to stardom with his debut album Deeper, but he’d been making a name for himself around Whangārei from a young age.
Born in South Auckland, the family moved north to Otangarei, AKA OT, when Matty was 8. Despite being the only white kid in both environments, he was often asked to lead the school haka.
“I think there was a certain amount of novelty in that but I really loved embracing culture. Every neighbourhood I grew up in was a brown neighbourhood and it influenced everything that I loved.
“When everybody else was listening to Led Zeppelin, I was listening to Bob Marley and Stevie Wonder and when the 80s kicked in and break dancing was a thing, as soon as Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five happened, I fell in love with hip-hop and I’ve listened to it ever since.”
His earliest memories of music were, as an 8-year-old, sneaking into his sister’s room when she was not home and listening to Stevie Wonder on her old record player.
“My sisters love to sing as well and, one day, when I was just a little kid in OT, she invited her best friend around and we decided to have a singing competition.
“She had to vote and my sister and I both did our songs and her friend voted me. I think my sister’s never forgiven me for that,” he laughs.
“But it was one of those moments, I thought, ‘Oh, I can sing’.”
Matty made his first recording at 15 after falling in love.
“I have some vague memories, we went out on a couple of innocent dates.
“When we broke up, my heart was broken so I saved up all my money and I went into a recording studio in Whangārei and I recorded a couple of break-up songs.
“At the time there was a big band in Whangārei called Sirocco, their lead singer had just left and somehow the band got hold of my recording and asked me to sing for them.”
They performed at Settlers Tavern with their 16-year-old recruit and, from there, music became Matty’s default.
Returning to Auckland, he joined a band called House Party with Phil Fuemana. However, it soon underwent a name change becoming White Boy Black.
“People used to come to our shows and go up to Phil and say, ‘That white boy sounds black’ so Phil decided to change the name of the band to White Boy Black. Eventually it became Fuemana,” Matty explains.
During this time, he released the single Colour Blind which won a NZ music award, before he signed to EMI and produced the album Deeper. This included his own version of Cruisin, along with ‘I love every little thing about you’ which, to this day, is his most-played song, receiving about 1000 listens a day on NZ streaming.
He wound up in Atlanta, Georgia writing, producing and performing music where he developed connections in the industry recording music with the likes of Arrested Development.
Returning to NZ, Matty decided to pool his learnings into helping up-and-coming acts which led to discovering, developing and signing K’Lee to Universal Music, then writing and producing her album, which made her the first female NZ artist to achieve four Top 20 singles off a debut album.
He also signed Dei Hamo, leading to the album First Edition, and the certified platinum single We Gon Ride which spent five consecutive weeks at No 1, three months in the Top 10 and charting in Australia’s Top 40.
He was instrumental in the signing of ELEMENO P and discovered, developed and signed Brooke Fraser to Sony Music, overseeing the creation of What To Do With Daylight, taking her to No 1 and ultimately sales of more than seven times platinum.
Then an opportunity presented in Singapore to become the curator of Music Matters Live; Asia’s premiere gateway event to the region’s music bringing emerging artists from all over the world to perform and make inroads in the fastest growing music industry globally.
A position he still holds today, it involves going through up to 1000 submissions annually, choosing the acts and programming the festival.
During this time Matty collaborated with friends in the music industry to produce his latest album Beautiful Mess.
“I feel like, of all the records I’ve worked on in my life, and there’s been a few, it is the best thing I’ve ever done. I’m really excited about it.
“Beautiful Mess is a journey through love and all the aspects of love,” explains Matty.
“There’s a song about mental health and how it’s okay not to be okay. I, like a lot of people, have struggled with mental health and there’s a song on the record called ‘It’s okay, I’m not okay’.
“It’s very much about reconnecting with yourself, not being too hard on yourself and allowing yourself to go through things. It doesn’t have to be a death sentence.
“And the song doesn’t wrap up in a bow at the end and say, ‘Well this is what you do and then you’ll feel all better’, because that’s not real, people struggle daily.”
Then there’s Faded which goes back to Matty’s childhood with his father leaving home and his mother struggling with her mental health; “I understand why you want to get faded – you want to smoke, you want to drink, you want to forget stuff that’s going on in your life because life is hard sometimes and, for a lot of people, life is hard all the time.
“It’s called Beautiful Mess because the world is a mess but it’s still a beautiful mess. There’s still amazing nature around, there’s still people doing good things and you can find little pieces of heaven amongst the hell everywhere.”
With 30 years between Beautiful Mess and his debut album, Matty believes the difference between the two is maturity.
“It’s life lessons. I feel like, as I should be, a more mature person than I was all those years ago and the maturity is in the record without the record being, ‘look at me, I know everything’, because I really don’t.
“I’ve got so much to learn but I’m willing. I want to learn and the few things that I have learnt along the way are just naturally going to come out in the songs.
“Also, as you get older you become more aware of who you actually are. When I brought out my first album it was the result of the years that I’d lived but I really didn’t know who I was and I think I’ve kind of got a rough idea of who I am now.”
Surprisingly, Matty’s most popular song to date ‘I love every little thing about you’ wasn’t the most popular single when it came out 30 years ago, but streaming saw it reignite.
“There’s just something about it and probably the recording from my past that I’m most proud of because we went into the studio and it came out exactly how I wanted it to come out.
“There’s songs from my past that I hear playing now and I cringe a little,” he laughs.
“But ‘I love everything about you’ is three and a half minutes of good feelings and I think that’s why people like it because it’s a feel-good song.
“I read a quote from an artist and it basically said, ‘I make music to heal myself. If it heals someone else, that’s a bonus.
“It kind of resonated as music is very healing for me. And if someone else can hear it and feel some kind of healing that would be awesome.”
With a single set for release before Christmas and the album rolling out in the New Year, Matty is planning to return to NZ to perform and Whangārei’s a definite venue.
“I always make a point to go for a drive around OT and reminisce on the days. We kind of grew up in poverty as a kid, that poverty is still there but what is there is a sense of belonging and family,” he says, adding that he stays connected to the area from afar through the Otangarei Community Facebook page.
Matty’s sons are 19 and 22 and, though they haven’t lived in poverty themselves, they’ve heard many stories from their dad’s childhood.
“They haven’t had the struggle that I had as a kid and I used to worry about that because there’s something about struggle that, at least for some people, builds character.
“But they’ve got an amazing mum and I try to be a really good dad and they’re growing into pretty awesome young men.”
He adds: “The richness of community and my love of music formed in Otangarei has stayed with me through all my worldwide travels. I would not swap those early days for the world.”