How 900 ‘boring’ Kiwi mortgage stories became a hip-hop banger
‘What’s the Kiwi dream? House, family and car, gotta keep ‘em clean
Bills, work, bills, but what’s in between? No frills, 30 years till we’re in the green
We used to go out weekends, in the week too, now the bins go out more than we do’
To most people, hip-hop beats and home loans don’t sound like natural bedfellows – unless you’re NZHL CEO Kip Hanna and rapper Manu Walters. They’re combining their skills to let everyday Kiwis know they can have both a mortgage and a life.
“Every day we hear how people are having to sacrifice just to get by,” the financial services executive explains. “We want people to know they’re not alone and that there is a better way of paying off your mortgage – without life becoming boring.”
The idea took off last year when the company ran a campaign with ZM to find ‘The Most Boring Kiwi’, asking New Zealanders to share their honest stories about how boring life had become with a mortgage, or saving for one.
“We received around 900 submissions. People shared all the reasons why their friends, their sister, their mum, themselves were boring,” Hanna says.
“What stood out wasn’t regret or resentment. People were proud to own their homes, but also honest about how the responsibility can quietly change everyday life.”
NZHL wanted to get these stories out to a wider audience and let them lead the conversation. The aim was to reflect what people were already experiencing in everyday life – which led Hanna to what he affectionately calls “an obvious collaborator for a financial services company: the rapper Manu Walters.”
Walters was on board with the idea of turning the submissions into a song. “The reason I wanted to do the collaboration was reading through those lists. Those are things that are easy to talk about, and I could make the song how I wanted to make it; I had creative control over it.
“With hip-hop, it’s all about talking about your own experience, but with this it was all about other people’s experiences. And on top of that, I could relate to these things.
“I just picked things that were funny or that I like to talk about or that I would say myself, and put my own spin on it.”
Like the one about the kids who want Dad to buy takeaways. Broke, he cooks some rice, puts it in a box, drives the car around the block and brings the meal home. His daughter complains it doesn’t taste like it should. ‘They’ve got new staff on,’ he replies.
“Then I got my brother Ngawaka to make a beat, something that’d be a bit fun to play with.” Cue Walters’ new track, The Boring Banger.
Collaboration with a rapper is different for the financial services industry, Hanna admits, “but I like it because it’s bold and I think it speaks to, ‘let’s be real’. We want to be real, we’re in our communities, we’re real people – and so the reality of that resonated with us.
“We found Manu to be really authentic, understanding what everyday Kiwis are going through, and we were able to let him run with the project and come up with something that hit the mark pretty much straight away. It was incredible.”
NZHL (New Zealand Home Loans) is a Kiwi-owned franchise of 65 offices across the motu, arranging home loans, insurance and KiwiSaver referrals for more than 45,000 New Zealanders.
“They’re deeply connected to their local communities and genuinely passionate about helping clients within those communities,” Hanna says.
“Our advisers build long‑term relationships with their clients and support them with ongoing financial coaching to help them stay clear on their goals.
“That might involve simple, open conversations like noticing where money is going, what’s important right now, and where there might be opportunities to make different choices that support both their mortgage and their lifestyle.”
“Those conversations are important. We act as mentors, helping people understand their choices and the impact they can have. We love showing people that you can have a mortgage and a life.
“Using our debt management software, DebtNav, we can show how income and outgoings look over time and how greater awareness and the right structure can help people stay on track, while still leaving room for things like a holiday or a kitchen renovation.”
Walters captures the feeling in The Boring Banger: “I’m so bored of being poor, I’m just so bored of being boring, Last night I had sleep for dinner, on the bright side it keeps me thinner. There’s gotta be a better way…’
Hanna understands that people can feel overwhelmed by big numbers. He admits he gets upset hearing clients say, “Oh, I’ve got this significant mortgage and it’s dominating my life.”
But, he says, there is another way: “Talk to us. People may have more options than they think when it comes to getting good advice about structuring their mortgage better.”
If you’d like to learn more about how NZHL works, visit nzhl.co.nz
To listen to The Boring Banger check it out now on Spotify or Apple Music.