Caru & Brandn Shiraz: Putting Aotearoa’s Underground on Top

“Shoutout all the DJ’s who’ve been playing this project, and throwing all the parties up and down the country,” Brandn Shiraz proclaimed in his and Caru’s acceptance speech for Best Electronic Act at last month's Aotearoa Music Awards - turning a moment that was a win for the Tamaki Makaurau (Auckland) rapper/producer duo into a win for the entire ecosystem of underground electronic music in Aotearoa, New Zealand. “We wouldn’t really be anything without you guys.”

Caru and Brandn Shiraz’s lore in the DIY corner of Tāmaki Makaurau’s music landscape runs deep. Before they were an award-winning duo tearing up festival stages and clubs across the nation, both made names for themselves with work in former duos before branching out with solo projects. Caru, the moniker of Māori musician Carl Ruwhiu, rose to prominence as one half of electronic synth-pop duo Imugi 이무기 alongside vocalist Yery. The project made its debut in 2017 with the multicultural storytelling and soulful genre-melting pot of their ‘Vacasian’ EP, before releasing the acclaimed debut album ‘Dragonfruit’ (2020) and ‘It’s OK to be a lil Alien’ (2022). Brandn Shiraz, the alias of Cook Islands artist Brandon Rangi-Dixon, has been a prolific voice of the city's hip-hop scene since 2015. Starting out as a resident of the now-inactive Karangahape Road studio, The Grow Room, he built his respected reputation as a weapon on the mic as one half of rap duo Shiraz & LSJ. Both newcomers to the Tāmaki music scene at the time, Caru and Brandn were circling each other's orbit long before coming together as collaborators, showing up at the same house parties and even being booked on the same lineup for Imugi’s first-ever live show back in 2016.

“I think it was 2016 when we first crossed paths. I was at a house party in Kingsland, and my friend and I were playing a set. I was jamming on a Launchpad that was plugged into my laptop, playing samples and shit, and my homie was playing guitar,” Caru recalls. “After our set, we sat down, out comes Brandn and his homies, and he was just freestyling. That was the first time I heard Brandn rap. It was inspiring for us, because we were trying to get into the local music scene at the time, and we were seeing this dude who was even younger than us just killing it.”

Following each of their formative duo projects, over the last few years, both artists have been carving out their own singular space as solo acts. During the COVID pandemic, when Imugi weren’t able to work on music together, Caru found himself in search of new inspiration, which struck when a friend introduced him to UK garage, and he instantly became a student of the genre's rich history. His now-signature production palette is shaped by garage, breakbeat, UK funky, dubstep, jungle, grime, and more, but at its core, Caru’s art is inherently rooted in his own homegrown culture. His work channels the defining elements of UK dance music filtered through the lens of a Māori artist raised on the quintessential sounds of Aotearoa.

“When I really delved into the history of UK garage, I saw this parallel between how 90s hip hop beats were produced and how over in the UK they were making these crazy garage tracks on the same kind of hardware and using the same kind of sampling techniques - but just with this completely different design for the dance floor,” Caru explains of the evolution of his sound. “It was such an inspiring approach, and I felt like it lifted a lot of things that were hindering my progression. I felt free when I was writing dance-floor-based music made for DJs. I didn't have to constrict myself to any one sound or style.”

Caru’s early solo career rapidly gained traction through the output of SoundCloud and Bandcamp bootlegs, reconstructing the nostalgic soundtrack of a New Zealand childhood into instantly recognisable club crowd favourites. His reworks infused a driving, percussive pulse into chopped up samples of timeless 90s and 2000s New Zealand national anthems, including Fat Freddy’s Drop’s ‘Ernie’, Anika Moa’s ‘Dreams In My Head’, Mareko and Deceptikonz ‘Stop Drop & Roll’, Ardijah’s ‘Silly Love Songs’, Savage and Aaradhna’s ‘They Don’t Know’. Since that period, he’s also contributed original tracks and official remixes for renowned contemporary artists including MOKOTRON, MELODOWNZ, Lady Shaka, Dera Meelan, Deadforest Church, and more.

“It's easy to just whip together a banger, but it's so much more satisfying if the ingredients you're using mean something to you, and that you have some kind of personal connection to it,” Caru explains of the intentions behind his creative process. “I'm always trying to do that with my songs. Through the process of making it, giving it some depth and a connection to me makes it so much more satisfying when it gets released and people enjoy the tracks. I feel like I really put myself into the art.”

Brandn Shiraz dropped his breakout self-titled EP in 2023, honing his skillset as both a masterful MC and producer. The rapper puts the Pacific at the forefront of his art, blending traditional Cook Island Pātē drums with trap beats and razor-sharp storytelling, all rooted in the perspective of the Pacific diaspora. Raised by a Rarotongan father and North London-born mother, Brandn’s links to the UK inspired a curiosity about ragga and soundsystem culture, resulting in a sound that crosses continents and collides dancefloors from Aotearoa to the UK, the South Pacific, and beyond. “She introduced me to a lot of reggae music from the UK that she grew up listening to,” Brandn says of his mother's influence. “I think when I got older, when I started to get into grime and garage, I kind of connected the dots and realised where it comes from and that it’s all connected.”

After a decade of pursuing separate musical paths, it wasn’t until the pair came together with the 2025 collab EP ‘Back 2 Back’ that Caru and Brandn Shiraz scored their biggest success to date. A project that was initially intended to be just a fun side quest between longtime friends became an award-winning piece of Aotearoa music history, released independently, without any major-label backing, funding, or commercial radio play. “If you had told me a couple of years ago that this would be the project that would get an AMA, I don't think we would have believed it,” Brandn admits. “We just made this because we both love this kind of music,and it turns out that there's a whole lot of people from here who love it too.”

Riding off the high of the Aotearoa Music Awards, Caru and Brandn announced ‘Two for Two’, the appropriately titled follow-up project to ‘Back 2 Back’. A year and a half on from their debut, ‘Two for Two’ finds the pair cementing a space that’s distinctly their own, further stretching the boundaries of genre, and developing their refined sound with the addition of live jazz instrumentation from renowned Tāmaki Makaurau multi-instrumentalist Joe Kaptein.

Intro track ‘Speaking My Mind’ is an expression of intention, setting the confident tone of ‘Two for Two’, with Brandn’s bars outlining the duo's uncompromising ethos and asserting his masterful skillset over crisp 2000s-style 2-step production. Opening with atmospheric chords before Caru’s shuffling, percussive rhythms hit, Brandn raps: “never mind trending, I’m an old soul, no reason for me to keep with the times.”

“We had a completely different order for the project at first,” Brandn reveals. “But I listened to the project fresh from the awards, and when I heard ‘Speaking My Mind’, I was like, “nah, this has got to be the first thing that we come with.” We just came from the AMA’s a few weeks ago, and now we're putting this out. What is the first thing I want people to hear?”

Caru adds, “We were trying to really pay homage to the early sounds of UK garage - that Sunday afternoon kind of vibe where it wasn't about the biggest drops, it was a little bit more about capturing a vibe.”

Second track ‘Best Believe’ blends knocking, syncopated UK funky and broken beat rhythms with dreamy R&B sensibilities, marking a full circle moment for Caru with his former Imugi bandmate Yery’s celestial melodies gracing the hook under her new artist moniker, f.dedpuppy. “It was Brandn's idea to get Yery on the track, actually,” Caru says. “We always imagined having an R&B singer on it, and we had some R&B vocals that we were chopping up for it initially. But then Brandn was like, "We know an amazing singer, why don't we just get her to sing on it?” It just made so much sense to have this full circle moment with Yery jumping on the track, especially after she launched her own solo project recently.”

Released at the end of last year alongside a Side A/B vinyl release, the project's double-sided title track finds Caru and Brandn effortlessly flexing their versatility. Side A leans into a mellow, jazz-infused groove with layers of live synthesiser and keys from Joe Kaptein, contrasted with Side B’s bass-blistering dubstep laying a gritty foundation for Brandn’s rapid-fire grime-inspired delivery to cut through. The contrasting yet cohesive energies of the dual tracks mirror the duo’s live performance, inspired by the seamless blends, gripping transitions, and abrupt beat switches of soundsystem culture, where the crowd is constantly kept on their toes, anticipating the next sonic shift.

Outro track ‘Weapon’ closes the project with a floor-shaking fusion of UK garage and dubstep. Pairing Brandn’s quick-witted punchlines and club-ready one-liners against a beat that builds with a dark and heavy pulse, his high-intensity flows demand movement and gun fingers, rapping: “DJ pass the weapon, I send one straight to your head like a pina colada.”

“That track is kind of referencing this period in time in the early 2000s where garage was starting to evolve into dubstep,” Caru explains. “I felt it had this garage feel to it, while also having this heavy dubstep sound system influence. When Brandn sent through his verse, it was obviously so fire and captivating, and I thought it would be cool if the instrumental kind of built as he was rapping. A lot of elements in the song don't really reveal themselves until later on in the track, and those types of tracks I always love to hear on the dance floor.”

‘Two for Two’ is tied together with a music video stylised as a live mix, where the duo run through a range of new tracks including ’Speaking My Mind’, ‘Weapon’, ‘Two for Two’, and an unreleased tune titled ‘Dreams’. Alongside Joe Kaptein on live keys and Caru on the decks, Brandn raps against the lush landscape of the city’s oldest and largest central park, The Auckland Domain. Directed by Blaze Bailey, the visual embodies the project's ability to soundtrack a sweaty 3 am dancefloor as much as it’s built for the calm Sunday afternoon reset.

Known for their exhilarating live set dynamics, Caru and Brandn are taking the project to dancefloors across Aotearoa this June and July for the ‘Two for Two’ New Zealand tour. Over four dates in Pōneke (Wellington), Tāmaki Makaurau (Auckland), Ōtautahi (Christchurch), and Ōtepoti (Dunedin), the shows are curated entirely by Caru and Brandn, across hand-picked promoters, venues, sound systems, and support acts who have all played integral roles in the pair’s journey, and each holds their own position as leading figures of the wider landscape of Aotearoa’s thriving underground electronic ecosystem. “I’m really proud of the fact that we've done everything independently. And that we've been fully in control of our creative vision, from how the songs came together, all the way to how the rollout happens, and even to the shows that we're playing,” Caru says.

It’s this fiercely grassroots mindset and uncompromising authenticity that’s launched Caru and Brandn Shiraz as one of the country’s most exciting and forward-looking acts in years. No matter whether they’re packing out a dingy dive bar on Karangahape Road or accepting an award on the main stage of the AMA’s, Caru and Brandn Shiraz are putting Aotearoa’s underground on top.

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Caru & Brandn Shiraz ‘Two for Two’ New Zealand Tour Dates

Friday 19 June - Wellington - Moon Bar - Presented by Garage Sale

Friday 17 July - Auckland - Goblin - Presented by GoldTooth

Friday 24 July - Christchurch - Sydenham Underpass - Presented by 103 Soundsystem

Friday 25 July - Dunedin - TBC - Presented by Norty Club Collective

Tickets here

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Laura McInnes is a Freelance music writer. Follow her on Instagram.