This Year’s Biggest Aotearoa Music Awards Snubs and Surprises: Dunedin, Theia, BENEE

Rolling Stone AU/NZ has spent the past few months celebrating Ōtepoti Dunedin music in our special Scene Report series, and there’s certainly been a lot to celebrate.

So it was surprising to discover that, by our count, just three of this year’s nominees in the main (non-artisan) categories are associated with Dunedin*: Nadia Reid, up for Best Folk Artist, and Michael Norris and Anthony Ritchie, both up for Best Classical Artist)

Dale Kerrigan released their best album yet (HEAVY GREASY) in 2025, and Pearly* (Not So Sweet) and IVY (Hush) dropped two of the most promising debut albums to come out of this country in many years. The list could go on.

2025 felt like the best year for Dunedin music in a generation — some national recognition during awards season (none of the 10 nominees for this year’s Taite Music Prize are from Dunedin, either) would have been pleasing.

*Either originally from or currently based in the city

Our editorial team loved Dick Move’s ferocious third album, Dream, Believe, Achieve, so much so that it made it all the way to No. 2 on our Best New Zealand Albums of 2025 list.

Tāmaki Makaurau’s party-punk band did receive multiple nominations in key categories, including for Best Group, but the big one, Album of the Year, eluded them.

That latter category is admittedly stacked this year — it will be difficult to call a winner — but we think Dick Move’s career-best work was deserving of inclusion.

Like Dick Move, BENEE is another nominee who reasonably could have expected to be nominated in more categories.

National awards, like the AMA, always like to celebrate the biggest artists, so it was surprising to see Grey Lynn’s finest pop star miss out on the main category, Album of the Year; if that was perhaps slightly out of reach, several of her 2025 drops could have earned a Single of the Year nod, particularly “Cinnamon”.

Still, if it’s any consolation, BENEE stands a good chance at winning Best Pop Artist, if history is any indication: she won that award every year from 2019 and 2022. It’s not like she’s competing against anyone important this year, either — who’s this “Lorde”?

Theia is an artist we’ve long supported on Rolling Stone AU/NZ, so our editorial team was delighted last year when she finally released her debut album, Girl, in a Savage World.

Melding alt-pop sensibilities with fiery punk energy, it was a debut more than worth the wait.

Plenty of Kiwi listeners seemingly agreed — Girl, in a Savage World debuted at No. 11 on the Official Aotearoa Top 20 Albums chart — but awards voters have clearly had a differing opinion: first there was no place in the Taite Music Prize top 10 for Theia’s album, and then she was locked out completely from this year’s AMA.

Does being based in the US count against her? Maybe so. But it’s a shame that such a powerful and political collection of waiata hasn’t received more critical recognition in its creator’s homeland.

A good surprise.

Caru and Brandn Shiraz, two of Tāmaki Makaurau’s hardest-working and coolest underground musicians, combined to thrilling effect on Back 2 Back, a joint EP fulled by their love of the timeless sounds of UKG.

“I think I would describe it as UK dance music through the lens of somebody that’s grown up in Aotearoa,” Caru told us last year. “I’m deeply inspired by UK dance music and its history… but I’m trying to infuse that sound with my own influences growing up here in Aotearoa…”

Back 2 Back was the sound of two musicians trusting each other’s instincts, growing into the perfect producer and MC pairing.

And really their nomination is only a ‘surprise’ because Best Electronic Artist is one of the toughest categories at the AMA, due to Aotearoa’s fertile electronic music landscape — Caru and Shiraz deserve to be suited and booted at The Civic in May.

They’ve performed on late-night TV in the US. Tracks on their debut album (Portal) have been streamed in the tens of millions. They’re currently on a sold-out tour across the UK and Europe. But Auckland-born brothers Henry and Pierre Beasley, aka Balu Brigada, didn’t make the cut for this year’s AMA.

A few things perhaps counted against Balu Brigada and their album.

Like Theia, they’re based outside of Aotearoa, and they’re more popular outside of their home country. Portal is also a shapeshifting record, moving through alternative, pop, and indie rock sounds at will; as a result, the duo could have been nominated in multiple genre categories (Best Pop Artist, Best Alternative Artist). Voters are easily confused.

Rolling Stone AU/NZ wasn’t the only publication to effuse about RNZŌ’s talent last year. Consider the following praise:

“Back with his first new music of the year [2026], following a breakout 2025 which saw the 18-year-old Hamilton born, Kawerau raised rapper establishing his place as Aotearoa’s next Pasifika rap star…” (Sniffers)

“RNZŌ is 18 years old, and only released his first single in August last year [2024]. But he already has a large groundswell of support, and aided by some key figures in Auckland’s hip-hop scene, his debut is bursting with youthful bluster, regional specificity, and ear-pleasing rhymes.” (RNZ)

The youngest performer at Laneway 2025 swaggered through his electrifying debut album, RNZŌ SZN, but his charisma and flow evidently wasn’t enough to attract AMA voters.

Best Hip Hop Artist is always a fiercely contested category, and this year’s nominees are uniformly excellent (especially MOKOMOKAI, who fully deserve their flowers), but RNZŌ, given the acclaim that came his way throughout 2025, can probably feel unlucky at missing out. He’ll take consolation, however, in being nominated before.