Switched On: Yothu Yindi

One of Australia’s most successful musical acts, Yothu Yindi’s career has spanned multiple decades, with hit albums and singles including Treaty, Djapana (Sunset Dreaming), Tribal Voice, Timeless Land, World Turning and more.

Stalwarts of the Indigenous music scene in Australia, they’ve toured the globe for fans across the US, Europe and the Pacific, and count Midnight Oil, Paul Kelly, Neil Young, and Santana among them. In the last couple of years alone, the band has played packed out shows at Sydney’s Enmore Theatre, Melbourne’s Hamer Hall, Byron Bay Bluesfest’s Crossroads stage and the closing ceremony of the Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast. With 8 wins out of 12 ARIA nominations, they were inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame in 2012.

Despite losing Dr Yunupingu, founding singer of the group, in 2013, the band carries his legacy proudly with talented new frontman Yirringa Yunupingu walking tall in his uncle’s footsteps. Proving the lasting power of Yothu Yindi, the band has recently released a new single, Mabo, which both critics and audiences have been praising for its infectious groove and political message.

Thirty years on from when they burst onto the scene and featuring original band members and fresh talent from the next generation, this revamped supergroup of blackfellas and whitefellas from far North-East Arnhem Land continue to honour the music and movement its founders sparked in 1986 and live up to the spirit of intergenerational kinship of the band’s name (Yolŋu Matha for ‘child and mother’).