Of Waanyi and Kalkutungu descent from so-called Queensland, Australia, and Ngāti Mutunga, Ngāti Manu, and Te Ātiawa from the north island of Aotearoa, WAARI’s practice is grounded in lineage, shaped by place, and driven by the urgency of expression.
Now working across music and print, he creates from a place where personal history and collective experience meet. His songs are grounded yet expansive, holding grief and love, resistance and continuity, while tracing the ongoing realities of being Blak in colonised spaces.
His practice doesn’t separate past from present, instead it moves with them, drawing lines between memory, body, and future possibility. His debut EP MUKI (2024) is a meditation on cycles—of life, death, return, and renewal—told through interconnected stories of family and land. Blending textured production with intimate songwriting, the project situates WAARI as an artist deeply attuned to both where he comes from and where he’s going, offering work that is at once grounded, searching, and uncompromising.
