Kev Carmody Inducted Into the NIMA Hall of Fame

The National Indigenous Music Awards were held as a huge two-hour live event across triple j, Double J, Unearthed and the National Indigenous Radio Service with crosses to community, exclusive live performances and the awarding of this year's trophies after the event was cancelled due to COVID in August. 

Kev Carmody accepted the award, making note of the whole community of First Nations artists that have contributed to and continue to build on the history of Indigenous music. 

“I’m absolutely so proud, humbled and honored to accept the award on behalf of all of us. Past, present and of course future, because it’s a collective way of thinking in my opinion, that we all go together and no one gets left behind,” said Kev Carmody.

“I’m so proud of the young ones! It might be rap, it might be hip hop, it might be reggae; we’re still expressing [ourselves] through the oral cultural traditions, which is songs and storytelling, it’s just in a musical sense. I’m so proud of our young mob with the music, and with dance - that’s an interpretation too - and art. That’s our way of passing on our oral tradition and I think it’s fantastic. I can sit back now. I’ve played my four chords and that’s it.”

With his debut album 'Pillars of Society' emerging in 1988, Carmody quickly became one of the country's most respected First Nations voices. Best known for his classic 'From Little Things Big Things Grow' with Paul Kelly from his album 'Bloodlines', Carmody was inducted into the Queensland Music Awards Hall of Fame in 2007, ARIA Hall of Fame in 2009 and received the JC Williamson Award at the Helmanns in 2019.

2007's 'Cannot Buy My Soul' collected some of Australia's biggest artists paying tribute to Carmody with a re-release in 2019 pushing the album back into the charts once more. 

Check out two of The Music's live reviews of Kev from his 2016 tour at Melbourne Recital Centre and Chevron Gardens.
View the Kev Carmody documentary 'Songman' below.