Christine Anu: Tying threads together
For some artists, a hit single can be a monkey on their back – especially if it’s a cover of another artist’s song. This is not the case for Christine Anu, who will almost certainly always be best known for her version of My Island Home, the 1987 Warumpi Band classic originally written for the group’s late singer George Rrurrambu Burarrawanga, a Yolŋu man from Elcho Island.
The resonance isn’t lost on Anu, a Torres Strait Islander by descent. “What a privilege and honour it was,” she says. “This song was loved very much and very deeply by a whole audience before it even became a song that I knew about.”
Anu’s version, re-titled as Island Home and released in 1994, made her a star, propelling her 1995 debut album Stylin’ Up to platinum status in Australia. The album’s effervescent fusion of pop, R&B and traditional songs earned her an ARIA award. “She had that Neneh Cherry kind of brashness and confidence,” says its producer, David Bridie.
But it has taken the best part of another 30 years for Anu to make an album that fully reflects her heritage and status: her mother is from Saibai, just south of Papua New Guinea; her late father is from Mabuiag in central Torres Strait.…
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