The Wantok Musik Foundation is a not-for-profit Music Label that records, releases and promotes culturally infused music from Indigenous Australia, Melanesia and Oceania. Wantok Musik raises the local and international profile of Indigenous and world music groups based in the region, and provides greater economic opportunity for artists and long-term career sustainability.

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NEW SINGLES FROM WANTOK MUSIK

TIO - MUMBWE

Wantok Musik is proud to share the new single from Tio, ‘Mumbwe’. It is the second single to be released from his forthcoming debut album, Sorousian.

This track is Tio’s reworking of a song used in the Rom custom dance which has continued to hold a special resonance for him since he first witnessed it as a child. The song is a catalyst for sharing and connection as groups of men would come together to sing and perform its accompanying dance in unison. The old language used in this song has been lost, but the sense of shared history remains.

In Tio’s interpretation, his harmonies and overlaid drum rhythms evoke the shared experience of performing this musical tradition on a bed of swelling synths and percussive textures.

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You can buy or listen to this song here.

BLACK ROCK BAND - IF IT WAS ME

Black Rock Band’s new single ‘If It Was Me’, the second single from their forthcoming album, Identity. This song features Sam Teskey on guitar and backing vocals.

The band’s frontman Richie Guymala was inspired to write ‘If It Was Me’ by Uncle Badger Bates, the artist and environmental campaigner who advocates for the protection of Baarka, also known as the Darling River. Richie was particularly inspired by Uncle Bates’ passion and conviction to protect the river which is so important to the Barkanji people; and how it holds the knowledge of the people and was the life blood for their families as their transport, food source and the marking of the seasons.

Through ‘If It Was Me’ Black Rock Band hopes to continue conversations about protecting the land, environment and important sites of First Nations knowledge and history.

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You can buy or listen to this song here.