In Jimblah’s own words, “Music is our connection to land, time and space. Artists such as DRMNGNOW (“Dreaming Now”), Yothu Yindi (Gurrumul’s former band), Emily Wurramurra, Jimblah, and many more, have all joined First Sounds to call for the long overdue nurturing, growth, and celebration of their music by the broader Australian public. In addition to Waak Waak Djungi, who integrate traditional music with contemporary electronic sounds, there are Indigenous artists working in genres including reggae, punk rock, gospel blues, and hip-hop. In 2019, there’s no shortage of talented Indigenous musicians passing down the knowledge and language of their ancestors through music. “Somewhere along the line, I feel we may have lost sight of true power and essence.” “I feel like we have forgotten what the music really is, being so industrialized, commercialized, and over-consumed,” says James Albert, a producer, MC, and vocalist from the Larrakia Nation, Traditional Owners of the Darwin area of Australia’s Northern Territory.
To the younger generation of Indigenous musicians traversing the industry, this balance between culture and commerce has long been troubling. Dr Yunupingu had decided to stay at home to learn the traditional stories of his ancestors in Elcho Island-stories that his community expected him to care for. However, a documentary released just a few days after his death in 2017 provided a fascinating glimpse into the last-minute cancellation of a lucrative tour of the US. His sales figures reflected that adoration-his 2008 debut album sold more than three million copies in Australia.
As the most commercially successful Indigenous Australian musician, Dr Yunupingu (also referred to as Gurumul before his death) was praised for the way he balanced two worlds, achieving widespread acclaim for his talents as a multi-instrumentalist and for the purity of his soaring but gentle tenor voice. Dr G Yunupingu, a blind singer from Elcho Island in the far north of Australia, was an ideal example of this dichotomy. Bring together Western culture music and traditional culture both ways.”īalancing traditional and Western cultures is a delicate process for indigenous Australian musicians, since commercial and cultural values are often in opposition to one another. “When they hear it, they’re all going to join in…black and white. “We can pass songlines and stories onto the young generation, and they can keep it in a book, CD, whatever,” says Bobby Bununggurr, via transcripted conversation with Peter Mumme, from his home in Ramingining. In his book The Songlines, Bruce Chatwin explains, “The melodic contour of a song describes the nature of the land over which that song passes.” These songlines describe the creation of the continent by ancestral beings, whose descendants-the current indigenous population-bear responsibility for reiterating, recreating, and disseminating the stories to a younger generation. Some Songlines can traverse the entire width of the Australian continent, acting like a map. These tracks are known as ‘ Songlines.’ While a significant number of Songlines and other traditions have been damaged or destroyed by colonial acts of dispossession, the remaining knowledge systems preserve the essence and purpose of the stories, if not in full.
Aboriginal elders move along navigational tracks singing and recalling information. Physical markers play a large part in memory preservation, with particular landmarks along a route or track prompting additional details of a story. In many regions, these memories have been meticulously kept and passed down over the last 80,000 years from generation to generation via song, dance, art, and stories. All knowledge-including detailed information about the climate, specific social mores, and the spirituality of Australia’s First Peoples-exist as oral memories. Working with Peter Mumme, an ambient producer living in Darwin, the trio created Waak Waak ga Min Min, an album that opened a window into the richness and beauty of Aboriginal tradition.įor Indigenous Australians, the world’s longest continuous cultural tradition, music and society are heavily intertwined. In the mid ‘90s, Bunungguur joined two of his fellow Yolngu Songmen, to record and release a reimagining of the songs of his community. Yolngu are one of the largest Indigenous groups in Australia, and their home in Arnhem Land is almost untouched-one of the last strongholds of traditional Aboriginal culture on the continent. Bobby Bununggur is a Yolngu Songman from Ramingining in northeast Arnhem Land, the ‘Top End’ of Australia.
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