Indigenous star Gurrumul’s second album Rrakala has hit platinum sales in Australia.
Gurrumul - image by Ros O'Gorman
The singer-songwriter has been busier than ever in recent months. He performed at the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Concert last month and released photos with some of the stars soon after.
He appeared on the ABC’s Australian Story a couple of weeks back and there will be a book of his life story released next May. And now, his second album Rrakala has achieved platinum sales in Australia, following up on the triple-platinum success of his Gurrumul debut.
This is on the back of release of the reworked album song ‘Bayini’, in collaboration with Sarah Blasko. Gurrumul’s producer Michael Hohnen said of the collaboration “This for me, is the key song on Rrakala. The English verse wasn’t working in Gurrumul’s voice so we left it as all language on his Rrakala album. After the album release we were heading to the UK and Gurrumul and I wanted a counter-balance for the English verse and approached Sarah Blasko, a fellow labelmate on (UK independent label) Dramatico.”
He continued, “Sarah and I spoke about her voice embodying that female ancestral spirit character and I think she has captured it absolutely beautifully in even a more classical side to her voice, perfectly complementing Gurrumul. Gurrumul loves performing this live with Sarah which has now happened across a few continents”
Check out the song below.
