betNwa is the musical project of Brisbane-based transfem artist and home recordist and regular Waxx Lyrical Love Letter columnist, Bette Benjamin. While this introduction only scratches the surface of her many roles, Bette is an inspiring figure whose work extends beyond music to meaningful contributions in the communication and advocacy for transgender voices. Having made music for most of her life, Bette introduced betNwa to the world just last year with the single 'Need To Know.' Now in 2025, she returns with two ridiculously brilliant songs—'Fulltime' and b-side 'Euphoric'—each distinct yet equally remarkable in their artistry and accessibility. Sonically, let's say that the lead track, 'Fulltime,' debuted on our weekly mixtape, fitting seamlessly alongside cuts by Tyler, The Creator and Ecca Vandal—make of that what you will when you press play. We caught up with Bette to chat about her project, her creative process, and what’s next on the horizon.
Hey Bette! How's today? What are you up to, aside from answering these questions...?
It’s 11pm and I just recorded a version of “Laura Palmer’s Theme” on my baritone guitar. It’s rare for me to learn a piece of music these days, I generally prefer to improvise and see what happens, but I thought the moment demanded it. I’m not sure if I’ll release it though. Knowing me it probably needs some tinkering first. Otherwise it’s an ordinary day: disability-support work, a trip to the gym, a touch of keyboard activism, and sweltering in my hot little apartment.
Congrats on the triumphant release of a pair of brilliant songs - 'Fulltime' and 'Euphoric'. The former is an infectious bop encouraging self-love and compassion and the latter continues those detailed themes into euphoria. I would love to hear about these songs and their lyrical themes in your words....
Aww thanks, I’m touched. I guess you could say these songs have three levels of meaning. On one level, they’re about how great it is to finally be open about my gender identity, and how that lets me love life and myself and other people to a degree I’ve never experienced before. But as I say in “Euphoria”, “It’s a paradox, the happier I am the sadder I am,” because there’s also this grief for all those years when I was lost. And lastly, there’s defiance: “To all the haters, get another hobby.” That ties into politics mostly, since I very rarely encounter abuse in my everyday life. But I think all trans folks are aware of a level of hatred in the culture. So I guess these songs are about living it large no matter what you’ve been through or what some people have to say about it. I have to say though, most people have been lovely.
And, as for production, I know you're a solo "bed room" project, but you truly cut an appealing compromise of authentic samples and live instruments. Can you tell us what typically goes into one of these songs....
Sure. Step One: I program a beat. That takes a minute or two on my Maschine controller, which is a groovebox that looks a bit like an MPC sampler and can trigger any sample or synth in my computer. I might refine the beat later and I’ll generally add fills, but the bare bones of the rhythm are enough to get me started. For betNwa songs, I start with acoustic drum samples. Anything weird or electronic gets added later. Step Two: I start layering guitar loops. Sometimes I’ll program a bassline first, but generally it’s guitar, and usually something abstract. I’m a big fan of Chase Bliss Audio (a cultish guitar-pedal brand) and their arcane approach to mangling sound, so I’ll just play riffs and tweak my pedals until I’ve got something beguiling and make a loop out of it. Then I layer more parts, generally getting more traditionally “musical” as I go, until I start to hear the shape of the harmony emerge. All of this is purely for my own entertainment. I just follow the first ideas that pop into my head. Next is usually bass, after which I’ll create a quick structure by dragging loops around on a grid in Maschine and bounce a rough mix and let it sit for a while. In the case of these tracks and the previous two (“Need to Know”/”Contagion”), those early structures stuck and I didn’t feel a need to change them, but in other projects that hasn’t always been the case. After I’ve let the tracks sit a bit to recharge my interest in them, I bounce the stems of the individual tracks to Reaper, my mixing platform of choice. At this point I might also add some sampled or “electronic” components: maybe a vocal synth, drum-machine sounds, glitchy synth noises, or some vocal chops from an online sample library. Once I’m working in Reaper, I’ll add a first layer of vocals, generally hooky melodic phrases I can turn into choruses. Either I scribble a few phrases on the spot or I’ll have saved something in a notebook while listening to the rough mix earlier. At this stage I only want to stamp the song with a theme and a title. Later I add the lyrical detail. After that I mix it, the hardest part of the process for me, since I’m far from scientific by temperament and I see mixing as mostly scientific. Then, with the mix nearly done, I finish the lyrics and record more vocals and do about five-to-ten more mixes.
Across the two, what is something you hear on playback that you're particularly proud of and might perhaps give a little internal cheer about....
I like that these songs are groove-based and spontaneous. They get me dancing! For most of my musical life I was predominantly a traditional singer-songwriter, composing chord sequences and melodies and creating rigid structures before I even considered how the beat would go. While I sometimes miss the harmonic complexity of that way of working, I feel as if these songs are alive in a way I never really managed in the past. Or maybe I should say these productions are alive. I wrote songs I’m still proud of in the past, but I very rarely did them justice when I recorded them. That was partly because I had preconceived notions of how they should sound, and I wasn’t capable of achieving those sounds with my equipment or skill level as a producer. With this project, my approach is entirely the opposite. Not only does the beat come first but I have zero preconceptions and I’m working entirely on the fly, trying to do whatever sounds good with the skills and set-up I have. It’s fun!
It's very clear that a LOT goes into betNwa - experience, inspiration and even trauma. As an artist, how would you introduce your project to someone who had never heard you before?
Always a hard question. I usually call it glitchy guitar pop if someone asks me, but I don’t think that quite does it justice. I think something crucial, which might not be immediately obvious, is that it comes from a hip-hop sensibility. betNwa is about me finding an authentic voice post-transition, and hip-hop gave me a template for that. In hip-hop, far more so than in rock, you can basically say anything as it occurs to you. You can be poetic, but you don’t have to be, and you don’t have to stick to rigid rhyme schemes. Also, it’s more acceptable to morph your vocals with plugins, which gives me a femininity that my speech therapy doesn’t yet allow me. Not that I don’t use untreated vocals in betNwa too – generally the lead vocal is always up-close and natural – but I can use several layers of vocals, including samples, each with a unique pitch and timbre. All of that lets me express truths about my transness, and about transness in general, that I can’t express in a rock framework. Musically too, I approach the music more as “beats” than “compositions”, but I don’t feel wedded to hip-hop as a style, more as a workflow. And then there’s the experimental guitar-noise aspect. Let’s just say it’s like Charli XCX meets Tyler, The Creator with a guitar-pedal fetish.
And finally, what's the plan for betNwa overall? Will you play these songs live? Will you move towards a body or work (album or EP?)? Keen to hear how I can be a fan of your work....
Definitely there’ll be an EP in the near future. These songs arrived in a batch of 9-10 of which at least 7-8 deserve an audience. Meanwhile I’ve saved up a mountain of other ideas so I expect there’ll be an album at some stage. As to live work, I do intend to tackle that at some point, but I can’t imagine reproducing the songs in anything like their current form. For one thing, most of the guitar effects are unreproducible, but also I want to keep the spontaneity. So I expect any live appearances will be kinda shambolic to start with as I work out how to create tracks on the fly with people watching. Maybe I’d bring the lyrics over from the releases but set them to new compositions, or very loose interpretations of these compositions...? It would be a sonic adventure, that I can guarantee. As to how to be a fan, hell, just encourage me. Let me know I moved you or made you dance, it really means a lot to me. I was an introvert for sooo many years, I’m still working out how to be this outgoing confident person I suddenly appear to be. Oh, and when the time comes for me to flee Meta with all the other queers, follow me to Discord or wherever. I’ll let you know.
betNwa's 'FULLTIME and 'EUPHORIC' OUT NOW INDEPENDENTLY
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