Yothu Yindi added to National Indigenous Music Awards Hall of Fame

The pioneering dance, rock group have been selected as this year's National Indigenous Music Awards Hall of Fame inductees and are being honoured with a new display in the Australian Music Vault.

The display highlights some of their most significant career achievements, featuring an array of tour posters dating back to 1991, when the group was at the height of its fame. Posters featured include the Tribal Voice tour with special guest Deborah Conway (1992), the One Blood European tour (1999) and a poster for their performance at The Club in Collingwood with special guests Dead Things (1991).

Australian Music Vault curator Olivia Jackson said her parents took her to see the group for her first concert at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl when she was three.

"One of my earliest memories is sitting under the awnings on the old wooden benches while this incredible band performed their album Tribal Voice," she said.

"I was so excited to learn they would be inducted into the NIMA Hall of Fame; their contribution to Australian culture cannot be understated and the objects in this display tell a small part of the story of their incredible contribution."

Formed in 1986 in the Yolu homelands of north-east Arnhem Land, Yothu Yindi represent the coming together of two cultures. The group was formed by the merger of non-Aboriginal act Swamp Jockeys and an unnamed Aboriginal folk group consisting of Mandawuy Yunupingu, Witiyana Marika and Milkayngu Mununggur.

Yothu Yindi is known for breaking boundaries with music blending western folk and rock instrumentation with north-east Arnhem Land song cycles, incorporating traditional Aboriginal instruments such as bilma (ironwood clapsticks) and yidaki (didgeridoo).

The band recorded their first album Homeland Movement in a single day in 1988, earning them a record contract with Mushroom Records.

Their second album Tribal Voice (1991) featured hit singles Djapana and Treaty, the latter was written in response to Prime Minister Bob Hawke's broken promise to complete a Treaty with Australia's First Peoples before his term was up.

'Treaty' was the first song in an Aboriginal language to chart in Australia and overseas. The album went double platinum, with the remix of Treaty by Filthy Lucre spending 22 weeks in the Australian charts and winning multiple ARIA Awards, including Song of the Year.

Over the following years, Yothu Yindi released six studio albums and performed at famous UK festival Glastonbury, at the closing ceremony of the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games and New York's United Nations building in celebration of the International Year of Indigenous Peoples in 1993.

They were inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame in 2012 and won eight ARIA awards from a total of 14 nominations.

In 2017, a new generation of artists joined original members to form Yothu Yindi and The Treaty Project, which aims to bring their powerful message to a new audience.

The NIMAs have been recognised as one of Australia's most prominent music awards celebrating Indigenous music since 2004. Previous Hall of Fame inductees include Kutcha Edwards, Vic Simms, Archie Roach, Tiddas, Wilma Reading, Jimmy Little and Gurrumul.

Since opening its doors in December 2017, the Australian Music Vault has honoured each NIMA Hall of Fame inductee with a display and featured essay.

The Australian Music Vault is a free exhibition and a key initiative of the Victorian Government's Music Works strategy.

For more information click here.