Baker Boy and Beyond: the Aboriginal ‘Cultural Renaissance’ of the 1980s and Australia’s View of Indigenous Music Ines Jahudka Music is both a celebration and reification of culture. Choices of tonality, form, and instrumentation play an integral part in forming cultural musical identities. Musical performance of culture therefore becomes a political act; particularly in settler colonies like Australia, with a complex history of violence and dispossession. When the 1988 bicentennial
celebrations
focussed
Australian
attention
on
history
and
nationalism,
Aboriginal activists used this introspection to push for a new kind of recognition of its people and culture. They called for an ‘Aboriginal Renaissance,’ and demanded a space
within
perform
the
Australian
Indigenous
music,
arts
industry.
became
a
To
celebrate
political
act.
Indigenous
This
push
for
culture,
and
recognition
to
and
inclusion of Indigenous music impacted the wider music scene from the late 1980s onwards
and
provoked
an
ongoing
dialogue
about
appropriation
and
cultural
sensitivity.
1988 was a momentous year for Australians, marking the bicentenary of the arrival of Europeans. Aboriginal Australians, conversely, had unofficially marked 26 January as a Day of Mourning since 1938. For them, the bicentennial was a celebration of violence, oppression and cultural diffusion, including the harmful stereotyping and appropriation of their music by non-Indigenous Australians. Amidst the ‘Tall Ships’ celebrations and flag-waving, civil rights activist Charles Perkins called for a ‘cultural renaissance’: a movement to reclaim Indigenous art forms from the non-Indigenous performing arts establishment. To perform Aboriginal music, and celebrate Aboriginal culture, became a political act. Mandawuy Yunapingu, front man and founder of Australian rock band Yothu Yindi, declared “our music has to be political because it tells our story and our story is one of survival.”
Performance in this period not only planted a musical flag, but also challenged the limited genres available to Indigenous performers. Aboriginal musicians such as Jimmy Little and Dougie Young had been performing for several decades, using standard folk, blues or country styles. From the 1980s, however, Indigenous performers began to use the recognisable rock forms of mainstream Australian music and transform them into protest songs, using music as the vehicle to present their culture and challenge the celebratory nature of the upcoming Bicentennial. The Warumpi Band’s 1985 release, Black Fella/White Fella, highlighted racism faced by Aboriginal Australians. Artists like Kev Carmody and Paul Kelly combined rock and folk styles, releasing From Little Things,
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