In 1996, Melbourne-born musician and producer Michael Hohnen was teaching music industry skills to indigenous youth on Elcho Island (off the Arnhem Land coast) when he met a young man Rolling Stone would one day call 'Australia's most important voice'.
We're speaking of course about Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu, perhaps the most iconic and respected indigenous artist this country has ever had the good fortune of bearing.
Michael, known as a 'balanda' or 'whitefella' in the tongue of Gurrumul's Yolngu tribe, fondly recalls the first moment they were introduced. “I was helping his peers form a band called Saltwater with an ex-member of Yothu Yindi whose name was Cal Williams,” Michael explains.
“When first there was the idea of this band being formed, they ran off and came back later in the day arm-in-arm with this young, special man and presented him as 'he's our gold and he's going to be in our band'.
“I remember from that first day when they introduced him to me the special character, the special energy he had with him. It was like they were introducing a hidden gem for me and they were so proud of him.”
The enduring respect and admiration held for Gurrumul even as an adolescent was attached to him from an early age and only grew throughout the course of his life and career.
By the time of his death at the age of 46, he was widely recognised as Australia's most commercially successful indigenous artist. “I wasn't around when he was a child but over the years we've met people at concerts who lived with him when he was young... and everyone speaks about him in such a revered way.
“He would strike up some kind of relationship with nearly everyone he met, except for someone in the media,” Michael laughs.
“He would give them some sort of 'in' in terms of communicating with him. He never spent time parading around with some massive ego, which I felt was another redeeming feature he had.
“There was pride in the community growing up; they treated him as a special asset of their community but he never paraded that publicly. He always took the humble route or modest path.”
This month will see the posthumous release of Gurrumul's final album recorded shortly before his death, 'Djarimirri' or 'Child Of The Rainbow', something Michael sees as an honourable responsibility to fulfil for his departed friend.
The title refers to the identity of being a 'child of the rainbow' placed on Gurrumul by sheer virtue of his birth. “His mother's clan are Galpu and so him being the child of that clan automatically gives him that identity from birth,” he says.
“He was brought up with a really, really strong sense of identity and because that song is so uplifting and powerful and the family so strongly identify with him being that name, I thought that would be the most apt title for the record.”
'Djarimirri' is no simple addition to a discography; for Michael it represents the most intimate and stirring work by Gurrumul as well as being one of ultimate, cultural significance.
“One of the purposes [of the album] was to present the beauty of traditional music and our aim was to present it in a way that was accessible, but rising to the challenge of Yolngu still having ownership over it,” Michael says.
“Hopefully this album is another window in; we tried to make his first album a window into both cultures. He worked so well in two worlds and I saw that illustrated out in everyday life; he was such a strong operator in both worlds.”
