Rising Star Budjerah takes home APRA Award, announces his “Conversations” World Tour and Remix for “2 Step” with Ed Sheeran
Budjerah’s “Conversations” World Tour poster. Courtesy of Budjerah’s Twitter, 2022.
Lately, Budjerah has been making waves in the national and international music scene with the winning of a NIMA (National Indigenous Music Awards) in November 2021 for Best New Talent of the Year, his announcement of his “Conversations” World Tour supporting Vance Joy, his winning of an APRA Music Award and collaboration with Ed Sheeran for a remix of his global hit single “2 Step”!
Budjerah broke the news of his new verse for Ed’s updated remix with an Instagram post this Wednesday (May 11):
The Coodjinburra youngster’s gone from Ed Sheeran presenting an ARIA Award to him, to actually collaborating with the UK hit-maker. In a press statement (2022), Budjerah admits that he “was so shocked” to have won the ARIA Award, “and it meant so much to me that Ed Sheeran was the one who read my name out.”
“To now be featuring on the Australian remix of Ed’s track ‘2 Step’ and have it released globally as I’m just starting my first overseas tour, it’s really exciting,” he announced.
With this track already established in Australia and his signing with Warner Records U.S. in August last year, the 20 year old Indigenous singer-songwriter is set to make his mark internationally! (The Industry Observer, 2021).
“Everyone at Warner Records is excited to partner with our friends in Australia on such an amazing artist,” Aaron Bay-Schuck, CEO & co-Chairman; and Tom Corson / COO & co-Chairman of Warner Records (2021), commented in a statement.
Budjerah’s single ‘Higher’ won APRA Music Awards 2022 “Most Performed R&B/Soul Work” category. Courtesy of Budjerah’s Twitter, 2022.
Budjerah’s skillful song writing capabilities were recently acknowledged in his nomination for Breakthrough Songwriter of the Year at the APRA Awards. His long song writing and production partnership with Matt Corby also paid off as they won the Most Performed R&B/Soul category for Budjerah’s debut single “Higher.”
"'Higher' is an ode to fun, it’s a celebration of happiness when life is stress and worry-free,” Budjerah told Cool Accidents in a past interview.
Along with the release of “2 Step,” Budjerah dropped the official video for his latest groovy single “Get Down” on 4th May (2022).
“‘Get Down’ feels quite abstract to me. The choices we made when writing the song were very different to what I’d normally do and I felt very adventurous. I really wanted to do the same thing for the video and I had so much fun on set. I love how it turned out,” the artist (2022) said of the new video in a press statement.
Budjerah revealed that the infectious track is “about the idea that I’ve come so far now, I have to keep going, it’s too late to stop what I’m doing now.”
The Aussie artist kicked off his “Conversations” European tour Tuesday night (May 10, 2022), performing at the Jazz Café in London. He will be headlining shows for the first time in London and Paris, as well as a slot at The Great Escape Festival in Brighton before jetting off to the U.S at the end of the month. Throughout the world tour, Budjerah will appear as a special guest for Vance Joy at several already sold out dates (Rolling Stone, 2022).
Budjerah will be back on our shores in July to perform at this year’s highly anticipated Splendour in the Grass (22-24 July), with a lineup of global superstars like Gorillaz, The Strokes and Tyler, The Creator.
Check out Budjerah’s tour dates via his website here.
We at Yarn are so excited to see Budjerah bring his talent and fresh sound to the global music stage! We love sharing stories of First Nations artists, shining a light on their creative journeys and how they give back to their communities. So, as this soulful musician continues to reach new heights in his career, we hope that his story inspires a new generation of young Indigenous Australian artists who wish to pursue their dreams in the music industry.