Island Roots, Auckland Ways: Singer Myshaan on finding his musical identity

Myshaan Komene, 21, is the singer behind hit song Sway.

Myshaan is certainly a unique name; deriving from the word mission - as in, the religious kind.

The 21-year-old Māori singer, full name Myshaan Komene, is the voice behind the hit and viral song Sway released last year.

He is also a devout member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and served the church for two years in Wellington - living away from his family for the first time.

“It changed my life,” he said.

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Recently, he found himself swamped with requests to perform at various church gatherings.

Komene says he was musically inclined from a young age, but only took his abilities seriously when he returned from his mission.

‘I had a bit of an identity crisis’

He did, however, find it hard to settle on a genre he would focus his music on.

“I had a bit of an identity crisis - musically,” he said.

“I started off with RnB, then I moved onto country music and I moved onto Aussie rap,” he laughed.

Eventually, he found his niche and the result was a beautiful feel-good song dubbed Sway - which has been listened to more than 1 million times on Spotify and which went viral on social media networking site TikTok.

A simple search of the song on TikTok will show how especially popular it is among young people - particularly with the accompanying video, which pulls on the heartstrings.

The remix version of the jam features Tongan songstress Dinah-Jane, based in the US. That has also proven to be a hit on its own.

Komene described her as being down-to-earth and said he was happy with how the remixed version of his song turned out.

“That’s when I hit that lightbulb moment,” he says.

“I was like: ‘This is where I want to be’.”

Island Roots, Auckland Ways is hosted by Flava radio host Mariner ‘Maz’ Fagaiava and academic Allyssa Verner-Pula. New episodes are available every Thursday. You can follow the podcast on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.