You're about to know this name: Budjerah

In just two years, Budjerah has become an ARIA-winning musician – and Baz Luhrmann’s new favourite singer

In just two years, Budjerah has gone from Fingal Head high schooler to ARIA-winning musician – and become Baz Luhrmann’s new favourite singer

It’s 5pm in Hobart and hundreds of young voices gathered at a local music festival are chanting the lyrics to an unreleased song.

“They gon’ know my name!” screams the crowd. They repeat the refrain again and again, as if willing it to come true. On the stage, a young artist with wavy brown hair is grinning from ear to ear. He is Budjerah, the ARIA-winning R&B wunderkind with a voice like sunlight and the charisma to match.

“Well, I was born with it,” the mononymous 20-year-old says with a chuckle. “A lot of people think Budjerah is a stage name. I get asked all the time: ‘What’s your real name?’ and I’m like, ‘It’s Budjerah.’”

A few weeks after that festival in Hobart, the fast-rising star is at Bells Beach in Victoria for the Rip Curl Pro World Surf League competition. He’s performing there, which he’s pretty stoked about. “I get to watch the surfing for free and sing, and they’re two things I like doing,” he says. “I surf a bit and both of my sisters are professional surfers. Growing up in my family, we were either in the water surfing or we were making music.”

Budjerah was born Budjerah Julum Slabb in 2002, in the small northern New South Wales village of Fingal Head.“It’s one way in, one way out in Fingal,” says the singer, whose name tells the story of his birth. In Bundjalung, which is the native language of the Coodjingburra people, Budjerah means first light.“I was born just as the sun rose in the morning,” he explains. Julum, meanwhile, means fish; apparently his uncles pulled in a big catch on the morning he entered the world. “My brothers and sisters and cousins, we are the first generation back to having traditional names because it was illegal to talk language for a while.  My dad’s name is Joel and my pop’s name is Kevin, but I got a real cool name.”

Bottega Veneta jacketfrom Harrolds. Venroy shirt. Dior Men pants. Christian Dior scarf. Van Cleef & Arpels necklace and pendant.

He grew up on his ancestor’s Country, where a soundtrack of soul or gospel was always playing in the background. His mother was in the church choir and his father played drums in the band. “I’ve never really thought about being a good singer because I’ve always just loved to sing. But I guess I was 13 when I decided I wanted to be a professional singer. I played Seaweed J Stubbs in the school musical Hairspray. I loved performing and everyone seemed to like the way I was singing, so I was like, ‘Yeah, this is pretty cool.’”

In 2018, Warner Music Australia A&R Manager Marcus Thaine stumbled across Budjerah singing a cover that his cousin, the writer and actor Nakkiah Lui, had shared on social media. Thaine was floored by the young musician’s voice. “I immediately believed and felt the words he was singing,” Thaine tells Vogue. “His early songs left me with an impression of a young artist who doesn’t just reinterpret blues, soul and gospel influences into something deliberately pop and palatable, but who taps into the core of these genres with a level of respect and understanding that feels more like a continuation of tradition and storytelling.”

Thaine signed Budjerah to Warner Music soon after. “His level of artistry excites me,” he says. Budjerah’s debut self-titled EP dropped in 2021. His angelic tenor, dancing along shimmery pop melodies in tracks such as Missing You, had fans hooked and the industry singing his praises. Soon after, he opened for some of the country’s biggest musicians– The Avalanches and Lime Cordiale among them – played Sydney Opera House (four times and counting) and took home the inaugural Michael Gudinski Breakthrough Artist ARIA award in 2021 from five nominations. He hopped up on the stage to accept the prize wearing a Prada suit, bolo tie and an expression of sheer disbelief.

"I didn’t expect to cry, but I’m crying and it sounds weird,” said the musician in what might be one of the award ceremony’s most endearing acceptance speeches ever. “I just can’t believe it.” And all of this was happening as Budjerah was finishing highschool. “A lot happened last year,” he says. A gentle tone suggests he’s still processing his rise and the consequences of it, both the positive and challenging. “No one really expected that I’d have so much going on so soon after putting the first EP out. There were a lot of changes I had to go through. My friendships changed. Getting out of school, it’s that time when everyone is kind of doing their own thing and I found that quite tough,” confesses the musician.

Prada vest, shirt, pants and bolo tie. Paspaley necklace and rings.

It was these changes that inspired Budjerah’s sophomore EP, Conversations, which landed in April. On What Should I Do?, the singer wonders why friends lost touch, while Get Down sees him acknowledge his successes and the fact he has to keep going. He says he prefers to write in company, so it’s fitting most tracks on Conversations came from actual conversations. Matt Corby, Budjerah’s producer and close collaborator, was one of the EP’s guiding forces. “We have fun doing what we do. It’s about being friends and trusting each other.”

Corby isn’t the only friendship Budjerah has formed through music. Young Byron-based artist MAY-A has also become one of his besties. She features on Conversations in the coming-of-age ballad Talk, which pops with a modern funk aesthetic. “Music is a great way to connect. For me, it’s the best way that I’ve connected with some of my closest friends,” says Budjerah, who also counts his band members among his pals. “We talk about music all the time. We’re always trading songs, asking, ‘Did you hear this?!’”

Rather than inspiring his music literally, the artist says his ability to spin a spellbinding yarn comes from his Indigenous heritage. “A lot of people think it’s really connected, but I don’t really make cultural music – I make pop music. ButI grew up with my family, on our Country and learning the stories, constantly hearing my family talk about our Ancestors, and I think that taught me how to tell a good story. That’s something I consider when I make music: What’s the story? That’s how I think of my culture as an influence.”

At the time of print, Budjerah will be on his first global tour. In 2021, the artist told Vogue touring overseas was on his bucket list. But not even he expected the opportunity would present itself so soon, barely a year after dropping his first EP. Before he set off, Budjerah was approached with another surreal opportunity. Baz Luhrmann was transforming his epic 2008 film Australia in toa TV miniseries for Disney+ called Faraway Downs, and he wanted Budjerah to write and record the project’s theme song.

Louis Vuitton cardigan and pants, Valentino shirt. Bulgari necklace, Christian Louboutin shoes. His own singlet.

“It was crazy,” recalls the artist of the moment Luhrmann approached him in January. “I’m not a very famous person or singer; he could’ve got, like, Doja Cat or Adele to sing this song. I’m still kind of like … how did this happen?” Giggling in his trademark warm and slightly bashful way, he adds, “I should ask him next time I see him.”

Admitting he’s never written a song like this one, Budjerah says, “It’s grand and epic. I feel connected to the story it tells; it makes me feel proud.”

He also reveals he and Corby “binge-watched the whole series”, then got to work armed with the brief from Luhrmann. “It’s this big collaboration, making a song for a TV show. You have to be aware of the project as a whole and what it’s going to look like. It’s not really about me; it’s Baz’s vision. Writing the song taught me how to be really specific and not venture off too much.”

After performing at music festival Splendour in the Grass in July, the vocalist heads out on tour with Aussie musician Vance Joy in September. Luckily, he likes touring and is excited to see how the world responds to his sound. Right now, it really is his oyster.

“I grew up with my family, on our Country hearing my family talk about our Ancestors,and I think that taught me how to tell a good story”

On the day of our photo shoot, Budjerah’s star power is clear. He’s soft-spoken sitting in the hair and make-up chair, but the energy in the room lifts when he steps in front of the camera. It feels like he’s assuming his rightful, celestial position reclining on a glittery moon.

“Budjerah is capable of becoming a household name,” says Thaine. “We’ll see him shape-shift through genres. He said he wants his third album to ‘sound like Lady Gaga’, so I’m excitedly bracing for that.” Thaine points to My Name, the track the crowd in Hobart was chanting, saying, “His mission statement is right there, in that song.”

I’m gonna sing it live/So you know it’s real/Create the kind of love/To give the world a light/Shine it till you can’t ignore/That you’re feeling right. The song continues: They gon’ know my name (B-u-d-j-e-r-a-h). And soon, the whole world will.

This article appears in the June 2022 edition of Vogue Australia, on newsstands June 6.