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Saltwater Band - Bolu - Live IMA 2006

By Robin Denselow  Tue 25 Jul 2017 20.02 BST Last modified on Mon 27 Nov 2017 19.32 GMT [The Guardian]

At 25 he was offered another musical opportunity, this time by Hohnen, a young white music teacher working with TaFE, the Australian further education programme.

Hohnen’s brief was to encourage Indigenous young people to make music, and he had access to instruments. He suggested to one of Yunupingu’s friends, Manuel Dhurrkay, that he should find musicians and start a band. Yunupingu was recruited, along with several members of his family, and together they founded Saltwater Band, mixing Indigenous influences with reggae. Hohnen had hoped that TaFE would finance the album, but when that failed to happen he started his own independent record label, Skinnyfish, with a friend, Mark Grose. The first Saltwater album, Gapu Damurrun, sold an encouraging 10,000 copies, and was followed by further albums: Djaarridjarri (2004) which was nominated for a world music award, and Malk (recorded in 2006 and released in 2009).