GADIGAL LAND: Introduced as “a legend in the making”, Dean Brady takes to the Yabun festival stage – effortlessly cool, loose shirt, broad smile.
It’s hot. The mood is joyous. Yabun is the place to be.
Recipient of the 2023 First Nations Emerging Career Development Award as well as a 2024 Dreaming Award (Creative Australia), the 21-year-old First Nations and Zimbabwean singer-songwriter is based in Meanjin (Brisbane).
His debut single, “Falling”, is clearly a crowd favourite – a gorgeous R&B song reminiscent of the Motown era, with bass-heavy off-kilter beats in the manner of contemporary producers like Kaytranada and Anderson Paak.
We sing along: “What if we fall in love …”
Brady’s commitment to craft is evident. His cool is accompanied by a natural stage presence. He clearly enjoys performing. At one point, he turns to his bandmates and says, “I really love that one!” The sense of fun is infectious.
Descended from the Gugu Yalanji and Birrigubba people and the Matabele Zimbabwean people, Dean Brady was born into a musical household. His parents were both members of the legendary “outback Motown” group Banawurun, and he grew up hearing their band practise in the living room and listening to his mother singing old soul songs as she cooked dinner.
As a child, he would perform Michael Jackson songs for friends and family, obsessing over the pop icon’s moves and sound, and even at a young age was tracing a lineage of soul singers that, eventually, would all be woven into his own musical DNA: Stevie, Marvin, Frank Sinatra, Usher. Going to a Justin Bieber concert at a formative age flicked a switch in him.
