Home truths: Izzi Manfredi on why The Preatures’ latest single should start a conversation

As Izzi Manfredi croons the opening lines, “People say it’s not cool / to be sweet like you”, the Preatures’ latest single already feels like a classic aged in the long days of a late-80s Aussie summer. The wide-open-road guitars sound like they should be beaming out from a car radio with a sand-dusted, heat-warped dash, back-announced alongside old Fleetwood Mac and new Lorde. But there’s an extra magic element in the textured tumble of the B chorus: Manfredi’s voice mingling with that of her collaborator on the track, Darug songwoman and educator Jacinta Tobin, both singing in Dharug language.

‘Yanada’ (which is Dharug for ‘moon’) is the third single from The Preatures’ second album Girlhood, released on Friday, and began as a song about female friendship, feminine energy and the natural world. But as Manfredi worked on the song, she felt that it was actually telling an Indigenous story, and decided it was important to include an Indigenous voice. Through a year-long process of consultation, research and learning the history of her hometown, Manfredi was introduced to Tobin, took her language classes, and they wrote the shimmering B-chorus together in one of the Sydney basin’s Indigenous languages.

2017 has been a year where Indigenous language is gaining more mainstream radio exposure, from triple j Unearthed’s hip hop rising star Baker Boy flipping between Yolngu Matha and English in ‘Cloud 9’ to Kardajala Kirridara’s gorgeous marriage of downtempo production and harmonies drawing on traditional sung stories, which has enjoyed a warm welcome across community radio. So it feels as though ‘Yanada’ arrives at a turning point, where radio and audiences are both making a deliberate and positive effort to bring Indigenous-language pop in from the world-music margins.

“I love everything these guys do – but more than just a catchy track, ’Yanada’ highlights the power of cultural collaboration, especially with the Indigenous community. Also – Izzi’s voice is magic. As usual.”
—Ash London, Hit Network.

But while Manfredi believes that the hundreds of languages and dialects native to the places where Australians make music should certainly be more of a part of everyday culture, she also wanted to avoid any sense of “taking” or appropriating language without doing her homework.

“We were very, very aware of the current discourse about appropriation and I did not want to go down that road at all,” she explained to TMN in a phone interview from the band’s Sydney studio, two days out from the album release.

“And again the response I got back from community … was that non-Indigenous people singing in language with proper permissions was a really positive thing, and in fact something that the Darug tribal council saw as vital to the language revitalisation.”

“I’m not the first non-Indigenous person to be singing in language,” Manfredi added. “There’s been artists all over Australia that have formed connections with Indigenous communities and brought out songs that are in Indigenous language.” However, from what Manfredi understands, they’re the first band to follow the protocols and engage in that process so meticulously.

“So in that respect, it’s setting a precedent for how artists actually engage with indigenous communities,” she continued. “I actually think if the song starts a conversation about the way we use language in this country … I think is actually a really positive thing.”

At the Preatures’ album launch in Brunswick Heads last Thursday – which began with a lyrical Welcome to Country from a young member of the Bundjalung nation – Manfredi gave the audience some background on the song, including her initial hesitations and the work the band did to make the song in the right way, and related the near-universal response from community: “We need non-Indigenous people speaking and singing in language, or the languages won’t live.”

It echoes what she’d told TMN on the phone the previous day: that she wants to see Indigenous languages “living in the mainstream”, as Maori language does in New Zealand.

“I want them on 104.1 [2Day FM],” she says emphatically. “I want to hear them on mainstream radio – and there’s a possibility that this song might not do that. But if it makes it a little bit easier for the next collaboration to happen and the next collaboration to happen … These languages are part of us all and it requires everybody to learn the languages, engage with them and to understand the culture from where they come from.

“I think it’s important to have the detailed, complex discussions around language. But it’s also important to have the broader spirit, which pop is the perfect vehicle for.”

And right now might just be the time for that to happen. After all, this is the year of ‘Despacito’ dominating the airplay charts – and if a reggaeton track half sung in Spanish can become one of the biggest hits of the year, why not a classic-throwback pop song with a catchy, sun-soaked chorus and a uniquely Australian heart?