180: Benee and the Art of the Sad Banger

How does it feel to become a global pop star under lockdown? Benee’s “Supalonely” had been out for over 5 months when in March of 2020, it quickly became the second most popular song on TikTok. The song’s hook “I’ve been lonely… Supalonely” clearly reflected a global collective malaise about the pandemic—and people wanted to dance to it. She wrote this “sad banger” to help get over a breakup. And now the song changed her life. Not along before she’d dropped out of college to make music while working at a pizza place. Her first EP had found an audience in her home country, New Zealand. Now, with her TikTok success Benee has ascended the top 100 in 30 countries. All of this happened from the solitude of her childhood bedroom, where like so many people, she’s taking zoom calls all day. She tells Switched On Pop about using levity to overcome personal difficulty and what’s like to achieve global recognition from home.

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