Rrakala

NT music star Gurrumul Yunupingu won the ‘Best Independent Blues & Roots Album’ Award for ‘Rrakala’ at the 2011 Independent Music Awards, held in Melbourne on October 12.

And on October 13 it was announced that he also had won the ‘Best World Music Album’ Award, in the fourth ARIA FINE ARTS category, held at Sydney Theatre in conjunction with the music nominations announcements.

This gives the Elcho Island world music star his third ARIA Award.

Gurrumul was up against a raft of world class competition in the category, including David Bridie, Hein Arumusore, Jacob Rumbiak, Ronny Kareni & Donny Roem, Saltwater Band (also from Elcho Island), Shaolin Afronauts, Slava and Leonard Grigoryan and Joseph & James Tawadros.

The artist – and his second album Rrakala – has also received a five further nominations at the upcoming 25th anniversay of the national ARIA Music Awards, to be held at Allphones Arena, Sydney Olympic Park, on Sunday, 27 November, 2011.

They include ‘Best Independent Release’, ‘Best Male Artist’, ‘Album of the Year’, ‘Best Cover Art’ (Carlo Santone) and ‘Best Video’ (Carlo Santone).

Northern Territory dance music superstar Jessica Mauboy also received an ARIA Music Award nomination in the ‘Highest Selling Single of the Year’ category for her song Saturday Night (feat. Ludacris). She is also included in Public Voted category  ‘Most Popular Australian Artist’.

Gurrumul is currently on a concert tour in Europe to support the European release of Rrakala, and will return to Australia by the end of October. He is scheduled to appear at the Homebake Festival in Sydney on December 3.

More here. Visit the ARIA website and AIR website.

Words: Megan Spencer. Sources: AIR, ARIA, The Music, The Australian.