TEEKS has never sounded freer. The Māori soul singer released My Boy today, 26 June, his first single in two years and the most openly queer music he has made. It is sensual, playful and personal, and it lands right at the close of Pride Month.
The honesty is the whole point. TEEKS, born Te Karehana Toi, spent session after session letting people assume what they wanted about his sexuality, just to get through the day. It started to grate on him.
“I was doing sessions back to back and got tired of explaining or correcting people on my sexuality. It got to a point where I would just go with whatever people assumed so that I could just get through it,” he says.
“Eventually, I started to feel disingenuous, and so when I did the session with M Basa and Josh Fountain, I thought fuck it. It’s now or never. I got into the vocal booth and didn’t hold anything back.”
That baritone does the rest. My Boy is vulnerable and assured at the same time, built on the intimate songwriting that made his 2021 debut album Something to Feel a hit at home in Aotearoa. This time he writes straight from his own life, with a new openness about who he is.
The video leans all the way into queerness
The clip matches the song. Directed by TEEKS and longtime collaborator Ray Edwards, it builds a world of queerness and homoeroticism, full of real affection. It also pushes back on fixed ideas of masculinity, manhood and sexual fluidity within Polynesian and POC communities, which makes it far more than a pretty companion piece. Watch it below.
Need a soundtrack for the final stretch of Pride Month? TEEKS just handed you one. At DNA, we love watching an artist take a swing this bold. My Boy is him at his most fearless, a portrait of desire and longing that asks nothing of you except that you press play. Out now.
