Bic Runga on the 2010 Winery Tour, in New Zealand. Photo by Nick Chappell.

The album that I’ve just made now, the goal was kind of to make a record that was imagining rock having never happened because it’s really sparse. There’s no distorted guitar. I love that sort of music but I don’t make it that well. I wish I could, but I just don’t do it as well as other people.
– Bic Runga on her album Birds, from NZONSCREEN  Note: goto this link for an in-depth bio and interview with Bic.

Briolette Kah Bic Runga MNZM (b. 1/13/76,) recording as Bic Runga, is a New Zealand singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist pop artist. Her first three studio albums debuted at number one on the New Zealand Top 40 Album charts. Runga has also found success internationally in Australia, Ireland and the United Kingdom with her 1997 song “Sway.”.

She was born in Christchurch. Her mother, Sophia Tang, was a Chinese Malaysian lounge singer in Malaysia when she met Joseph Te Okoro Runga (d. 2005,) a Māori ex-serviceman and self-taught pianist. The couple moved to New Zealand to live. Runga is of Ngāti Kahungunu descent. Regarding her name, she explains: “You say it Bec, rather than Bic. … It’s Chinese, it’s a strange vowel sound which doesn’t seem to translate in Australia. It means the colour of jade, which might mean green.“

Early Years and Musical Beginnings
She grew up in Hornby, Christchurch, surrounded by a musically inclined family, and started recording songs with her sisters, Boh (oldest) and Pearl, when she was four years old. Boh was the vocalist in the New Zealand rock group Stellar in the 1990s and 2000s, while Pearl is a session singer. Runga learned how to play drums at the age of eleven, and guitar at about fourteen. She also learned to play the keyboard around this time to perform in jazz bands. She attended Cashmere High School, joining high school bands.

Early Career
Under the name Love Soup, Runga and Kelly Horgan entered the 1993 Smokefreerockquest in Christchurch, achieving third place and a music contract with Pagan Records. Using a QE II Arts Council grant, Runga recorded the first Drive EP in Wellington. Unsatisfied with the direction that her music was being taken, she moved to Auckland in 1994 and spent a year writing and performing in cafés. In 1995, she sent a new demo of “Drive” to Sony Music, which signed Runga in September of that year and bought her Wellington recordings from Pagan Records. Sony had her re-record the song with more instruments, but it was eventually her demo that was used on the upcoming album. “Drive” is described as a “haunting pop ballad”, which she wrote minutes before her first Auckland performance.  It entered the Top 10 in New Zealand and won her the APRA Silver Scroll award in 1996.

Runga then released “Bursting Through“, the first single from her upcoming album, also entitled Drive. The success of the singles led to the release of her debut album, Drive, in 1997. Runga’s song “Sway”, along with a duet with Dan Wilson of Semisonic called “Good Morning Baby“, were used in the films American Pie, and Cruel Intentions. Six singles were released from the album, while “Sway” was released in New Zealand, Australia, the United Kingdom, and Germany. Runga has recorded two songs called “Drive”. The first was her own, which appeared on her debut album of the same name. The second was a 1999 collaboration with fellow New Zealanders Strawpeople, providing guest vocals for their cover of The Cars’ classic 1984 hit.

Runga’s partner is drummer Kody Nielson. She has three children. She has two sisters who are also musicians, Pearl Runga and Boh Runga.

Good article on Bic about her and her new album, Red Sunset is here at The Post (in NZ.)

Discography

Source: wikipedia:

artist’s official website