Kahl Wallis

Upon releasing their debut album in 2012, Kahl’s band The Medics took out top honours at the 2012 National Indigenous Music Awards with wins for Best New Talent, Album of the Year, and Song of the Year for ‘Griffin’, and were crowned Best New Talent at the 2013 Rollingstone Awards. In 2015 they picked up a Queensland Music Award for their song Wake Up, released as free digital download on January 26 in honour of Survival Day. The Medics have performed at a number of festivals across the country including Big Day Out, Splendour in the Grass, Woodford Folk Festival and Groovin’ The Moo, and in 2014 they toured internationally to Brazil.

In late 2014 Kahl decided to strip back into raw acoustic mode to explore his songwriting and cultural roots further. He was soon invited to tour with Blue King Brown, opening for them as a solo artist at shows across the country. With his solo project only just beginning to gather speed, Kahl was honoured to receive the Dreaming Award at the 2015 National Indigenous Arts Awards presented by the Australia Council for the Arts. The award came with a $20,000 cash prize for him to record his debut solo album, currently scheduled for release in 2016.

Between recording as a solo artist, touring, participating in community projects, and working on his second record with The Medics, Kahl also works as a music mentor and program facilitator with The Jimmy Little Foundation, delivering health and lifestyle workshops to Indigenous kids in remote communities.

Kahl identifies with his grandfathers country, the Wuthathi Nation from the white sands of Shelburne Bay in Cape York Peninsula, and his Grandmothers mob, the Lardil people from Mornington Island in the Gulf of Carpentaria. He takes his last name ‘Wallis’ from his great-great-grandfather of the Polynesian islands of Wallis and Futuna.