BENITA UREY: THE LIBERIAN INFLUENCE.

Benita Urey is a blogger, and she has spent as much time being in the news, as she has spent reporting it. She owns and runs “The Liberian Influence”, a blog that focuses on Liberian pop culture.

Benita Urey is no stranger to the public eye and controversy, ranging from her public relationships to humanitarian efforts, and her family’s political status. Benita Urey who is a blogger has spent as much time being in the news, as she has spent reporting it. She owns and runs “The Liberian Influence”, a blog that focuses on Liberian pop culture. She also owns “Imodils”, a modeling agency.

Born Benita Whitney Urey, she is the daughter of Benoni Urey, a Liberian businessman, farmer, and politician. Mr. Urey was a presidential aspirant and remains as one of the faces of the political opposition.  Benita migrated to the United States during the Liberian civil war, but she constantly transited between the two countries during that time.

In 2003, after the Liberian civil war, she moved back to Liberia and attended school for several years. By her first year of high school, she moved again, but this time, to Canada to finish high school and start university. However, she defines her life as based in Liberia, as she tries to be in Liberia as much as she can when she isn’t in school. She says she is Liberian, and therefore uses her blog to showcase Liberia.

During our interview, Benita was asked the bolded questions, and her responses are in each paragraph that follows

Who is Benita Urey? What do you do?

I am a student. I study law and society at York University, Canada. I am a blogger with the Liberian Influence, which I own and run.  I also run a modeling agency with 8 models. It is called Imodils. I am also a humanitarian. I work with a prison focused NGO called the Kpumah Prison Foundation, and I started and run two NGOs called: “save Liberia from sea erosions”, and “mobilizers for change”.

Why did you start your NGO?

We started the first NGO when I visited WestPoint and saw that people needed help with sea erosion. As I did more work with that NGO, I realized that I wanted to help more than just sea erosion. So I established mobilizers for change that focus on different humanitarian efforts. We could have done all the work under the first NGO, but the name was tied to sea erosion. We needed one with a more encompassing name of everything we wanted to do.

Why blogging?

Before I started blogging, I was in a public relationship with an artiste. And as someone in the public eye, I realized that a lot of blogs were carrying certain false stories about my relationship and about my life in general. So I decided to start a blog to put out true stories. I also started out because I wanted to shine a light on Liberia. I felt I could showcase a lot of things about Liberia. When I started the Liberian Influence, we focused a lot on positive reporting. I felt at the time that a lot of blogs were running negative commentary for popularity. I also realized that I have cordial relationships with a lot of Liberian artistes, so I could rely on those relationships and properly shine a light and truthfully report. It was after a while that we started reporting everything, good or bad.

What’s the goal of the Liberian Influence?

The goal for the Liberian influence is to showcase Liberia as much as possible. I am focusing on graduation now, but after that, I want to open a radio station that would help promote Liberian music.

What do you think the role of blogging is in the music scene?

I think blogging has a huge role to play because, when the artiste wins, I think I win. With Liberian artistes, you can’t expect too much, but try to help, even if it is with advice. Bloggers have the ability to push Liberian artistes to be better. A lot of people from diverse views go to blogs to get news from an unbiased perspective. Blogs help shape the image of the artiste, and that image can affect business and markets.

How do you market Liberian artistes to the world?

From a blogging perspective, I like to give people a different angle, view, and story into the artiste. An artiste brand is not just by his songs. I try to portray the culture as well as the music to people out there so they fall in love with the act.

What challenges have you faced with blogging? Has being a Urey posed challenges?

Artistes don’t respect bloggers and their jobs. Sometimes it’s hard to get to or get information, from certain artistes if they think you are not in their camp. They don’t see it as me reporting. But the better I can properly report, the better for their brands.

For the challenge as a Urey, I could post something on my blog and people would interpret it as me putting stuff up for political reasons, even when other people run the same story. Even with my humanitarian work or things I do that have no links to politics, they get interpreted as politics because my father is Benoni Urey. Certain companies like Orange or government agencies would call or work with blogs and not call me even though my blog is big, just because I am Benoni Urey’s daughter.

What do you think is the problem with the Liberian entertainment scene?

I think we have two major problems: branding and support. Artistes need to brand themselves and sell their brand out there. A lot of artistes aren’t branded. Also, support is not there, and by the support I mean funding. Support from the fans is not there as well. By fans’ support, I mean fans putting money behind the artiste by going to their shows and paying for their music and merchandise.

What’s your experience as a woman in the Liberian entertainment scene?

For me, it has been great. But I try not to use my experience to define the Liberian woman experience in the industry. For example, on the topic of sexual harassment in the industry, based on who my father is, I might be more protected because someone wouldn’t want to get into problems with him or me on that.

What is your advice to bloggers or aspiring bloggers?

Be original, bring something new. Don’t plagiarize. Proofread your work. Also, Build relationships and push underground artistes. There is so much talent to be discovered. A point I am passionate about is, “we need to focus on Liberia because the Liberian entertainment scene needs our help more, they need more visibility”.  

Thank you for talking with us.

You’re welcome

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