Blekbala Mujik is a musical group based in from Arnhem Land

Arnhem Land

The Arnhem Land Region is one of the five regions of the Northern Territory of Australia. It is located in the north-eastern corner of the territory and is around 500 km from the territory capital Darwin. The region has an area of 97,000 km² which also covers the area of Kakadu National...

, Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

. They have a unique pop

Pop music

Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...

/rock

Rock and roll

Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...

/dance

Dance music

Dance music is music composed specifically to facilitate or accompany dancing. It can be either a whole musical piece or part of a larger musical arrangement...

/reggae

Reggae

Reggae is a music genre first developed in Jamaica in the late 1960s. While sometimes used in a broader sense to refer to most types of Jamaican music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that originated following on the development of ska and rocksteady.Reggae is based...

 sound and have a huge support base for their live shows and recordings. They are cited in the World Music: The Rough Guide as next best known to Yothu Yindi

Yothu Yindi

Yothu Yindi are an Australian band with Aboriginal and balanda members formed in 1986. Aboriginal members come from Yolngu homelands near Yirrkala on the Gove Peninsula in Northern Territory's Arnhem Land...

History

Blekbala Mujik was formed around 1986. Their base was located in the small community of Barunga (Gulin-Gulin) in central Arnhem Land

Arnhem Land

The Arnhem Land Region is one of the five regions of the Northern Territory of Australia. It is located in the north-eastern corner of the territory and is around 500 km from the territory capital Darwin. The region has an area of 97,000 km² which also covers the area of Kakadu National...

 in Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

.

The founding member, Peter Miller, lives in Alice Springs, but the band is based in Barunga. The band sings partly in English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

 and partly in Kriol

Australian Kriol language

Kriol is an Australian creole language that developed initially in the region of Sydney and Newcastle in New South Wales in the early days of White colonisation, and then moved west and north with White and Black stockmen and others...

, which is a creole language

Creole language

A creole language, or simply a creole, is a stable natural language developed from the mixing of parent languages; creoles differ from pidgins in that they have been nativized by children as their primary language, making them have features of natural languages that are normally missing from...

 based on English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

 and Australian Aboriginal languages.

Blekbala mujik means "blackfella music" in Kriol.

Band members

• Peter Miller - guitar
  Guitar
  The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
  
   and vocals
  Singing
  Singing is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments...
  
  ;
• Lazarus Murray (a.k.a. Gulindirriy) - didgeridoo
  Didgeridoo
  The didgeridoo is a wind instrument developed by Indigenous Australians of northern Australia around 1,500 years ago and still in widespread usage today both in Australia and around the world. It is sometimes described as a natural wooden trumpet or "drone pipe"...
  
   and vocals
  Singing
  Singing is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments...
  
  ;
• Lachlan Lawrence - bass
  Bass guitar
  The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
  
   and vocalist;
• Johnny Blanasi - lead guitar
  Lead guitar
  Lead guitar is a guitar part which plays melody lines, instrumental fill passages, guitar solos, and occasionally, some riffs within a song structure...
  
  ;
• Michael Havir - keyboards
  Keyboard instrument
  A keyboard instrument is a musical instrument which is played using a musical keyboard. The most common of these is the piano. Other widely used keyboard instruments include organs of various types as well as other mechanical, electromechanical and electronic instruments...
  
   and accordion
  Accordion
  The accordion is a box-shaped musical instrument of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone family, sometimes referred to as a squeezebox. A person who plays the accordion is called an accordionist....
  
  ;
• Dwayne Billy - clapstick
  Clapstick
  Clapsticks or clappers are a type of drumstick or percussion mallet that are used to serve the purpose of maintaining rhythm. Unlike drumsticks, which are generally used to strike a drum, clapsticks are intended for striking one stick on another....
  
  s;
• Hason Fuller - clapstick
  Clapstick
  Clapsticks or clappers are a type of drumstick or percussion mallet that are used to serve the purpose of maintaining rhythm. Unlike drumsticks, which are generally used to strike a drum, clapsticks are intended for striking one stick on another....
  
  s, vocals
  Singing
  Singing is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments...
  
   and dancing;
• Allen Murphy - drums
  Drum kit
  A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
  
   and vocals
  Singing
  Singing is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments...
  
  ; and
• Sammy Bush - lead vocals.

Discography

Nitmiluk (1990) - CAAMA

Midnait Mujik (1990) - CAAMA

Come-N-Dance (1993) - CAAMA

Tracks:

1. Black Cockatoo
2. Come N Dance
3. Drangkinbala
4. Children of the World
5. Love is a Beautiful Thing
6. Come N Dance (radio mix)
7. Farewell

Blek Bala Mujik (1995)

Tracks:

1. Mimi - Wajbagada
2. Walking Together
3. Drangkinbala
4. Buffalo Stampede
5. Don't Worry Just Be Happy
6. Come n Dance
7. White Cockatoo
8. Mibala Yubala
9. Mimi
10. Walls
11. One More Story
12. Farewell

Walking Together (1995) - CAAMA

Tracks:

1. Walking Together - Radio Mix
2. Walking Together - Full Mix
3. Walking Together - Instrumental
4. Walking Together - U.S. Mix
5. Buffalo Stampede (Traditional)

Awards

• 1996 Aria Award
  ARIA Music Awards
  The Australian Recording Industry Association Music Awards is an annual series of awards nights celebrating the Australian music industry, put on by the Australian Recording Industry Association...
  
   nomination for Best Indigenous Release
• 1996 Deadly Sounds
  The Deadlys
  The Deadlys are an annual celebration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander achievement in music, sport, entertainment and community. Vibe Australia hosts the awards, which for have been held at the Sydney Opera House since 2001. The first Deadly awards were held in 1995...
  
  Album of the Year