Myshaan Komene, 21, is the singer behind hit song Sway.
Myshaan is certainly a unique name; deriving from the word mission - as in, the religious kind.
The 21-year-old Māori singer, full name Myshaan Komene, is the voice behind the hit and viral song Sway released last year.
He is also a devout member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and served the church for two years in Wellington - living away from his family for the first time.
“It changed my life,” he said.
Recently, he found himself swamped with requests to perform at various church gatherings.
Komene says he was musically inclined from a young age, but only took his abilities seriously when he returned from his mission.
He did, however, find it hard to settle on a genre he would focus his music on.
“I had a bit of an identity crisis - musically,” he said.
“I started off with RnB, then I moved onto country music and I moved onto Aussie rap,” he laughed.
Eventually, he found his niche and the result was a beautiful feel-good song dubbed Sway - which has been listened to more than 1 million times on Spotify and which went viral on social media networking site TikTok.
A simple search of the song on TikTok will show how especially popular it is among young people - particularly with the accompanying video, which pulls on the heartstrings.
The remix version of the jam features Tongan songstress Dinah-Jane, based in the US. That has also proven to be a hit on its own.
Komene described her as being down-to-earth and said he was happy with how the remixed version of his song turned out.
“That’s when I hit that lightbulb moment,” he says.
“I was like: ‘This is where I want to be’.”
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