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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Melbourne Launch: We Have Come To Testify

The Melbourne launch event for We Have Come To Testify (There is much we want the world to know) will be held on Thursday 28th November at Blak Dot Gallery from 6pm. Link to the facebook event is here, the event is open to any friends of West Papua.

The event will celebrate the talents of the many contributors to this project as well as to create a space to hear and share stories from Byak survivors and members from the West Papuan community.

Please join us from 6pm for speeches, read testimonies, music and a screening of the short film about the project. Yudha Korwa will be speaking at the event and there will be music from David Leha and David Bridie as well as more to be announced.

The record and illustrated book will be available at this event. It that contains songs and spoken testimonies delivered over Melanesian beats and soundscapes. The illustrations by Michael Kumnick have been drawn based on the testimonies of survivors and witnesses of the 1998 Byak massacre in West Papua, as given at the 2013 Citizen’s Tribunal.

The events as told by the survivors echo the stories coming out of West Papua over recent uprisings in the towns and villages. The testimonies are spoken/written by Mama Tineke, Yudha Korwa, Ronny Kareni, Sixta Mambour, and Marcel Meltherorong with music produced by David Bridie and performed by Radical Son, the late Ferry Marisan, and Tio Bang amongst others.