The 2025 Taite Music Prize ceremony held in Tāmaki Makaurau mid-April was memorable for several reasons. One of significance was the prevalence of Māori winners, with Mokotron taking out the night’s main award. Perhaps even more unexpected was the soft-spoken, guilelessly eloquent Māori woman whose words that night are already oft-quoted online: Byllie-jean, winner of the Auckland Live Best Independent Debut award for her experimental pop EP ‘Filter’. Nur Peach followed up.

A lifelong creative but a newcomer to the commercial music world, Byllie-jean says this was the first award show she’s ever attended, and admits to finding the experience a little overwhelming.

“It’s a whole different world and I’m definitely not a person that’s naturally drawn to those kinds of scenes. Not that they’re bad, but I’m just not a big social group person!

“Obviously winning the award was amazing, but also really surprising. I didn’t think that someone like me would win, and I was also very grateful just for making it into the finalists. I thought the finalists were of really high calibre, so I was just really grateful to be there.

“When they said my name, I was still just sort of like, ‘Oh well, I kind of thought it might have been still part of the kōrero. And then Chelsea, my manager, leapt up, and I was like, ‘Oh my god, they are calling my name for a reason!’ Then you realise that you’ve got a long way to walk to the stage and you’ve got to say things, and straight after that, there’s interviews and photographs, and more things like that.”

Being a thoughtful person, Byllie-jean has reflected on questions such as whether the competitive nature of awards is in fact conducive to our music community as a whole?

“I feel really grateful, and the acknowledgement for the work is beautiful. I also think it’s strange that we all work hard and one person gets acknowledged. It almost feels a little bit elitist and hierarchical.”

Having been given a platform, Byllie-jean (Ngāti Kahungunu ki Heretaunga, Ngāti Pahauwera) used it to begin dismantling this hierarchy, turning the focus towards the collective rather than herself.

“For me, this is a win for all wāhine Māori,” she said in her acceptance speech. “Congratulations, wāhine Māori! No matter what happens, we just keep holding it down.”

“I’m speaking to the people that have gone before me when te reo Māori and Māori music was not in. I say ‘women’ because even though Māori music across the board was not popular, it’s also a male dominated industry. So if you’re Māori and a woman, there’s a double whammy going on. I hope that there are also some tailwinds that I’m leaving behind, because I’m definitely riding on those that have gone before me, that have been brave enough to release  their music and play and create in environments where there was hostility, where they weren’t appreciated, when it was tough to be in the industry.

“I hope the next generation of wahine Māori that are creating will feel recognised as well by me winning the award. I wanted it to be a community thing, and I wanted to acknowledge wāhine Māori, not just musicians either, but wahine Māori as mothers and grandmothers and survivors and that all of their hearts deserve an award.”

Evidently, Byllie-jean’s gratitude for her win has been strengthened by her understanding that as an older Māori woman, she doesn’t fit the mold.

“Age is just a number,” she says. “It’s just something we’ve made up. And it’s very strange that someone with more experience and more life lived would be given less value in an industry where storytelling is such a massive part of it, which is the only reason I’m fine with making a point that I’m a grandmother, and bringing attention to my age. But I also think that it’s beautifully strange and amazing to be awarded it at my age. Not that every older woman has to be awarded an award, but I think that it should be irrespective of age and image. Because my image isn’t anything to do with being able to be sexualised.”

Though this win is heartening, it also serves to highlight how difficult it is to be an authentic female artist in an industry where the expectation is for women to project a sexualised image.

“It’s confronting as a woman, because we know all the expectations society has on us, so I have to always keep coming back to what I feel like is real, not the messaging that I’m getting. And just be brave enough to be me. Be me in front of the camera, be me when I go out, be me at those awards that I find strange. And just be, and not worry about being something that I think I’m supposed to be.”

Byllie-jean’s ‘Filter’, released in March 2024, merges experimental pop with RnB, and incorporates both English and te reo Māori. She says the Taite Awards ceremony was an opportunity for her to reflect on how far this music has travelled in the past year.

“People went out of their way and came over and say, ‘I really appreciate your music. It’s on my playlist!’ People have come up to me and talked about specific lyrics, which is beautiful because I’m also pedantic about my lyrics in a way, I like to feel good in the lyric when I’m singing it! It’s hard to know who’s actually listened to it, so for it to receive an award, and for there suddenly to be all these waves about it is quite surreal. It feels like it’s got more momentum now than it did at the time when I released it. So people obviously were listening and I didn’t know. And I think that’s a beautiful thing!”

As is her fashion, Byllie-jean gratefully acknowledges those who helped her reach this milestone.

“There are people who, even when I was nobody or didn’t believe in myself, have consistently believed in me and encouraged me. People who have shared their resources with me in terms of studio spaces, who have played free gigs for me, who have just always had my back. And it’s meant the world, and it’s so powerful. Because if we can do that for each other, I think that this is empowering for all of those creative people out there to keep creating and keep telling our stories from this whenua, and I think we’ve got things to say.”