Five years after their acclaimed debut, the Lani Singers are back. Ninalik Arirak — which translates as Struggle for Freedom — is the second album from the West Papuan folk family band, released today on Dancing Turtle Records. Once again produced by Engin Hassan, it marks a significant evolution from the debut: where Ninalik Ndawi introduced the world to Benny and Maria Wenda and the music of the Lani tribe, Ninalik Arirak expands the family circle further, incorporating the voices of all of the Wenda children for the first time. It is a family album in the fullest sense — rooted in shared history, shared culture, and a shared determination that the music of West Papua will not be silenced.
That determination carries particular weight. The Indonesian regime has outlawed traditional music and cultural practices in West Papua as part of a systematic attempt to erase indigenous identity and replace it with Indonesian culture. For the Lani Singers, every song is an act of resistance — a refusal to allow the music of the Baliem Valley highlands to disappear into the silence the occupation is designed to impose. Ninalik Arirak continues that refusal, through songs that evoke the landscapes, traditions and struggles of a homeland the Wenda family know only through memory and music.
The Lani Singers were formed shortly after Benny and Maria arrived in the UK with their family, having escaped Indonesian custody and been granted political asylum. What began as a way of preserving Papuan culture in exile has grown into something with a considerably wider reach. Since the debut album drew a Guardian review describing it as “a gently haunting, rhythmic set that results from a remarkable personal story, and a little-reported struggle”, the family have performed at Glastonbury, the Stonehenge Summer Solstice — before a crowd of over 30,000 — the Mayor of London’s Thames Festival, and BBC Radio 3’s World Routes, among many others.
Ninalik Arirak is available now through the Dancing Turtle shop.
