Queen Bee Mentor: The professor who fed Lorde’s mental buzz

By Iggy Swind

6 February 2014

Conjuring Lorde: Mental substance behind the pop hit ‘Royals’

Before the Mental-buzz

With a view of an ugly concrete slab wall and a dumpster bin four stories below, Dr. Harry Hiveman recounted the untold story of Ella Yelich-O’Connor’s meteoric rise to ‘Queen Bee’ of pop music as Lorde from his office at Auckland University, in New Zealand’s largest city, Auckland.

According to Dr Hiveman, Ella Yelich-O’Connor came to see him one morning at the beginning of 2011, more than a year before she co-wrote the hit pop song ‘Royals’ with Grammy co-winner Joel Little. Hiveman, who is professor of the History of Nearly Every Hierarchical Civilization Since Sumeria, told of how the budding pop-music artist popped into his life looking for answers about why New Zealand had become a more materially unequal society since her parents were bourgeoise children.

“She wanted to know if…