Back In My Arms

'Back in My Arms' is a roots reggae single by Hori Shaw, released on 10 May 2024 through Precise Digital. It reached #1 on the Official NZ Top 20 Aotearoa Singles Chart and proved one of the most enduring songs of 2025, finishing the year at #2 on the 2025 End of Year Aotearoa Top 20, a measure of just how long it stayed in the national conversation.

Hori Shaw hails from Ōpōtiki on the East Coast. Three years before his breakthrough, he lay paralysed and alone for 13 hours after being bucked from his horse during a hunting trip, wondering if he'd ever walk again. He spent around four weeks at Auckland's Middlemore Hospital followed by four months in spinal rehabilitation. During that recovery, he turned to music, drawing on his experiences and putting pen to paper. "I thought, f***k, might as well just try and make some songs and see what happens and yeah it just took off."

'Back in My Arms' debuted on the Official NZ Top 40 Singles Chart on 28 October 2024, where it peaked at #1. On the Aotearoa chart it accumulated ten weeks at the top position, a number made all the more striking by its timeline: returning to #1 following a gap of six months, just after Shaw took out Breakthrough Artist of the Year at the 2025 Aotearoa Music Awards.

By mid-2025, Shaw had two songs on the Aotearoa Top 20 simultaneously, and joined Te Wehi and Shane Walker (all three of whom had reached #1) for the Homegrown Road Trip, his first headline tour of New Zealand. The East Coast trio occupied the top three spots on the chart at the same time, a rare convergence of artists from the same region of the country.

Shaw credits his grandmother and both grandfathers as musical influences, and says all his music is rooted in the life he lived growing up in Ōpōtiki. His advice to aspiring musicians is as unadorned as the man himself: "If you've really got a passion for music, why not do it eh? Just keep pushing."