Stella Rose Bennett, better known as Benee, is a New Zealandsinger and songwriter from Auckland. In 2019, Benee won four New Zealand Music Awards, namely Single of The Year, Best Solo Artist, Best Breakthrough Artist and Best Pop Artist. She initially gained national prominence with her singles "Glitter" and "Soaked", before her 2020 single "Supalonely" gained international popularity following its success on the video-sharing platform TikTok. Under the moniker of Bene, she made her solo debut with the 2017 single "Tough Guy", before later gaining prominence with her 2018 single "Soaked", which has been certified double-platinum in New Zealand. She released her debut EP, Fire on Marzz, with help from producer Josh Fountain in June 2019. Her second EP, Stella & Steve, was released in November 2019 and charted in the US, Canada and France as a result of the international success of the EP's final single "Supalonely". Since 2018, Benee has earned 4 credits on the Triple J Hottest 100, 3 of which were in the 2019 list.
Life and career
2000–2017: Early life
Stella Rose Bennett was born and raised in the suburb of Grey Lynn in Auckland. She grew up in a "really musical" family with parents who would expose her to the catalogs of Radiohead, Björk and Groove Armada. From the age of eight, Benee began taking guitar lessons in primary school before starting saxophone lessons in high school. Benee eventually dropped all music in order to prioritize water polo. She claims it "was life" and that she at one point hoped to represent New Zealand competitively. Benee later became interested in writing and recording music at the age of 17, after deciding that she did not want to pursue a career in water polo. Benee attended an all girls Catholic school, St Mary's College, where music was compulsory for four years.
2017–2018: Online beginnings and solo debut
Benee began her music career by posting covers to SoundCloud, and began making her own music in her final year of high school. After dropping out of a communications degree at the Auckland University of Technology after two weeks, during what she called "a quarter-life crisis", she decided to enter the music business professionally. Her music caught the attention of Josh Fountain, a producer and member of the band Leisure, with whom she worked with for both her 2017 debut single "Tough Guy" as well as her 2018 single "Soaked". Benee earned her first career entry on the Triple J Hottest 100 2018 with "Soaked" at #58.
2018–2019: ''Fire on Marzz'' and ''Stella & Steve''
In February 2019, Bene supported Lily Allen for an Auckland show during her No Shame Tour. Under the moniker of "Bene", released her debut EP Fire on Marzz on 28 June 2019, before later adding an "e" because of "pronunciation woes", and copyright issues. She had signed to Republic Records in early 2019, prior to this release. The EP, which was described by George Fenwick of The New Zealand Herald as "a funky, sun-soaked record", peaked at #13 on the New Zealand Albums Chart and at #75 on the Australian Albums Chart. The EP also earned Benee the award for Best Solo Artist at the 2019 New Zealand Music Awards in November 2019, where she also won awards for Single of the Year with "Soaked", Best Breakthrough Artist and Best Pop Artist. Benee's follow-up EP, Stella & Steve, was released on 15 November 2019. The EP features the single "Supalonely" featuring Gus Dapperton, which later gained international success in March 2020 after a viral dance challenge accompanied by the song spawned on the online video-sharing platform TikTok. This became her second song to become viral on TikTok after "Glitter" spawned a similar dance challenge in December 2019. Benee also supported American singer-songwriter Conan Gray for nine nights of his Comfort Crowd Tour of North America during December 2019. Benee's singles, "Glitter," "Find an Island," and "Evil Spider" each appeared in the 2019 Triple J Hottest 100 at 19, 25 and 51 respectively.
Benee's first headlining North American tour with support from Remi Wolf was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In June 2020, the song "Supalonely" clocked over 250 million streams before Benee made her television debut performing it on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon alongside Gus Dapperton. She also performed the song on The Ellen DeGeneres Show a month later. In July 2020, Benee released "Night Garden" featuring American producer Kenny Beats and British musician Bakar, as the lead single off of her upcoming album. She was shortly announced as Apple Music's Up Next artist for the month of July, becoming the first New Zealand artist with the title. Benee will depart on a headlining tour of New Zealand scheduled for October 2020. She has said that she will be releasing her debut album in 2020, noting that it will be very different from her previous releases.
Personal life
In an interview for The New Zealand Herald, Benee revealed that she has dyslexia. She also described her childhood experiences with songwriting:
throughout school I struggled with writing....I liked creative writing, that was what I loved, but I was always making mistakes, and I was confined to this way that I should write....Songwriting for me was this place where I don't have to be grammatically correct. Learning the craft with , when he was sharing all his knowledge – something clicked, and I was just like, I love this. It's a great emotional outlet for me; I just love splashing what I feel on to a track.
