The Conversation

Friday essay: How Indigenous songs recount deep histories of trade between Australia and Southeast Asia

Author: Aaron Corn, Professor of Music · Director, Centre for Aboriginal Studies in Music (CASM) · Director, National Centre for Aboriginal Language and Music Studies (NCALMS), University of Adelaide

In 1983, the prolific Yolŋu (Yolngu) educator and musician, Mandawuy Yunupiŋu, composed his first ever popular song, Djäpana: Sunset Dreaming. A decade later, this song would become an iconic Australian hit as Yunupiŋu’s band, Yothu Yindi, rose to stardom in the early 1990s.

At a time when other Yolŋu popular bands...

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