Muroki Mbote Wa Githinji (born 2001), known mononymously as Muroki, is a Kenyan-New Zealand reggae musician. A member of the bands Cloak Bay and Masaya, Muroki debuted as a solo musician in 2019. In 2021, Muroki's song "

Wavy WAVY-TV (channel 10) is a television station licensed to Portsmouth, Virginia, United States, serving the Hampton Roads area as an affiliate of NBC. It is owned by Nexstar Media Group alongside Virginia Beach–licensed dual Fox affiliate/ CW ...

" became a hit single in New Zealand.

Biography

Muroki grew up in

Raglan, New Zealand Raglan ( or ) is a small beachside town located west of Hamilton, New Zealand on New Zealand State Highway 23, State Highway 23. It is known for its surfing, and volcanic black sand beaches. History The Ngāti Māhanga iwi occupied the ar ...

, and attended

Hamilton Boys' High School Hamilton Boys' High School (Māori language, Māori: ''Te Kura Tamatāne o Kirikiriroa'') is a boys' secondary school in Hamilton, New Zealand, Hamilton, New Zealand and is the largest secondary school in the Waikato region. The school was estab ...

. At 14 he decided he wanted to become a musician. Together with Lennox Reynolds, the pair formed the group Cloak Bay, releasing their debut

extended play An extended play (EP) is a Sound recording and reproduction, musical recording that contains more tracks than a Single (music), single but fewer than an album. Contemporary EPs generally contain up to eight tracks and have a playing time of 1 ...

''Digi Town and the Boogie Boys'' in 2017. In 2019, Muroki began releasing music as the bassist for the band Masaya. In 2019, Muroki released his debut solo single "For Better or Worse", which caught the attention of New Zealand musician

Benee Stella Rose Bennett (born 30 January 2000), better known as Benee (stylised in all caps; pronounced ) and formerly Bene, is a New Zealand singer and songwriter from Auckland. In both 2019 and 2020, she consecutively won Single of the Year, Bes ...

, who played it during her appearance on

Elton John Sir Elton Hercules John (born Reginald Kenneth Dwight; 25 March 1947) is a British singer, songwriter and pianist. His music and showmanship have had a significant, lasting impact on the music industry, and his songwriting partnership with l ...

's podcast ''Rocket Hour''. Benee later reached out to Muroki over

Instagram Instagram is an American photo sharing, photo and Short-form content, short-form video sharing social networking service owned by Meta Platforms. It allows users to upload media that can be edited with Social media camera filter, filters, be ...

, and asked him to perform as a supporting act of her New Zealand tour in late 2020. In October 2020, Benee signed Muroki as the first musician on Olive Records, her personal imprint label. In April 2021, Muroki released ''Dawn'', an

he had been working on for a year alongside producers Josh Fountain and Djeisan Suskov. The lead single from the EP, "Wavy", became a hit in New Zealand later in the year, and during

Te Wiki o te Reo Māori () is a government-sponsored initiative intended to encourage New Zealanders to promote the use of the Māori language which is an official language of the country. Māori Language Week is part of a broader movement to revive the Māori langu ...

Muroki released a Te Reo version of the song, entitled "Rehurehu". Muroki released his third EP, "Timezones". Muroki described it as a "black soul record" which "speaks to the rainbow of emotions and experiences that I’ve endured throughout my relationship”.

Discography

Extended plays

Singles

As lead artist

Other charted songs

Guest appearances

Notes

References

External links

* {{Authority control 2001 births 21st-century New Zealand male singers Living people Māori-language singers New Zealand male singer-songwriters New Zealand singer-songwriters New Zealand people of Kenyan descent New Zealand record producers New Zealand reggae musicians People from Raglan, New Zealand