Stella Rose Bennett (professionally known as BENEE, Previously Bene) is a singer-songwriter from New Zealand. Her songs “Glitter” and “Soaked” were locally popular where she was from, before she went globally viral with “Supalonely” when it started to gain traction on TikTok in 2020. She has released three EPs; “Fire On Marzz”, “Stella & Steve”, and “Lychee”, along with an album called “Hey u x.”
Career[]
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 on both her 2017 debut single "Tough Guy" and her 2018 single "Soaked". As Bene, she earned her first career entry on the Triple J's Hottest 100 of 2018 with "Soaked" at #58.
In February 2019, Benee 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 American singer Remi Wolf was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. On 31 January 2020, Benee guested on Australian youth broadcaster Triple J's segment Like a Version, where she covered British musician James Blake's "Mile High", in addition to a performance of "Glitter". In June, the song "Supalonely" clocked over 250 million streams, as well as gaining almost 7 billion plays in just one month in 2020, a year after she joined the platform. Shortly after, she 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 the single "Night Garden" featuring American producer Kenny Beats and British musician Bakar, before releasing the single "Snail" amid the COVID-19 lockdowns in August 2020. Also in July, she was announced as Apple Music's Up Next artist for the month of July, becoming the first New Zealand artist with the title.
Benee featured on the track "Afterthought" on Japanese-Australian musician Joji's second studio album, Nectar. In October 2020, Benee was nominated for Best New Artist at the 2020 People's Choice Awards.Benee performed "Supalonely" on the American talk show Late Night with Seth Meyers in October 2020. In October 2020, Benee departed on a headlining tour of New Zealand October 2020, and formed her own record label, Olive Records, signing Raglan reggae musician Muroki as the label's first artist. On 15 October 2020, Benee announced her debut album, Hey U X, which was released on 13 November 2020. She had prior noted that it would differ musically from her previous releases. In late October 2020, Benee released the single "Plain" featuring Lily Allen and Flo Milli, shortly before she was announced as the winner of the 2020 APRA Silver Scroll Award for the song "Glitter". She also won Best New Zealand Act at the 2020 MTV Europe Music Awards, where she was also nominated for Best New Act and Best Push Act. On 13 November 2020, Hey U X was released, as was a music video for "Kool", which served as its fourth single. She subsequently won Single of the Year (for "Supalonely"), Best Solo Artist and Best Pop Artist for the second consecutive year at the 2020 Aotearoa Music Awards. Shortly after, her manager of four years, Paul McKessar, handed back his Aotearoa Music Award for Manager of the Year after allegations of his sexual misconduct became public. She announced and then rescheduled a regional tour in Aotearoa aka New Zealand in 2021 to 2022. In 2022 she announced her first World Tour.
On 4 February 2022, Benee announced the release of her EP Lychee and released the second single "Beach Boy", which she originally teased on her official Discord server on the 25th January 2022. On 25 March 2022, she featured on Triple J's segment Like a Version, where she covered American singer Ariana Grande's song "God Is a Woman", alongside a performance of her song "Never Ending". She would also release many collabortaive tracks in 2022, including with Deaton Chris Anthony, "Good Buy My Old Life", as well as Easy Life with "OTT", "I'm So Happy" with Jeremy Zucker and a remix of "Lots Of Nothing" with Spacey Jane.
Early 2023, February, would see Benee release the first single from her upcoming sophomore album, "Green Honda", and would also lead to her debut performance at the 22nd Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in April 2023. She would also release a track with previous collaborator Gus Dapperton with "Don't Let Me Down", appearing on his debut album, Henge. In May 2023 she released "Bagels", with mental health charity Youthline. In June she released a song with Australian artist Mallrat called "Do It Again", the official song of the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup.
In March 2024, it was announced that Benee would be joining Wallows on their North American tour. In May 2024, it was announced that she would be joining Olivia Rodrigo on the Australian leg of her Guts World Tour. In September she released the first single called “Sad Boiii” to her upcoming sophomore album.
Relationship and work with Olivia[]
BENEE is the opening act for the Australian leg for Olivia’s Guts World Tour, starting on October 9 and ending on October 21, 2024.