Back to Her Roots

Christchurch-born musician Bic Runga, 32, has been in Kuala Lumpur performing at the launch of the new BMW 7 Series, having just completed an album for Oxfam with Neil Finn, Radiohead and Wilco. “I’m in the process of recording my fourth studio album, and it’ll be out in a few months’ time,” Runga said. The daughter of Sophia Tang, a Malaysian lounge singer and the late Joseph Runga, a Maori soldier on duty in Vietnam who met his wife while on leave in Malaysia, Runga was named “Bic” for the colour of jade in Chinese. She said: “It’s a strange vowel sound which doesn’t seem to translate in English. Perhaps it’s a shade of green.” Runga released ‘Try To Remember Everything’ in November 2008. The album contains 14 unreleased recordings made between 1996 and 2008.