The Lani Singers are a West Papuan duo whose music carries both ancient tradition and urgent political meaning. Originating from the remote central highlands of New Guinea, their songs are rooted in the sacred rituals of the Lani tribe, preserving a culture that has endured for centuries.
Now living in exile in the UK, their work reflects a very different reality. Through their music, they document the ongoing struggle of the West Papuan people and the threat to their cultural identity under Indonesian rule. What they create is not just music, but an act of preservation.
The duo are Benny and Maria Wenda. As a young man, Benny was elected leader of the Koteka Tribal Assembly, representing tribes across the highlands. In 2001, he was arrested and put on trial for peacefully raising the West Papuan flag and advocating for cultural rights, facing a possible 25-year prison sentence.
While he was imprisoned, Maria fled with their five-month-old daughter to a refugee camp in Papua New Guinea after facing sustained threats. It was there, in exile, that she began writing songs. Benny later escaped during his trial and crossed the jungle to reunite with his family. With support from an NGO, they were granted political asylum in the UK in 2003. Settling in Oxford, they began using music as a way to communicate their story to the world.
The Lani Singers are not simply artists. They are cultural custodians, ensuring that the voice of their people continues to be heard. Their debut album, Ninalik Ndawi (Freedom Song), recorded over two years and produced by Engin Hassan, blends traditional Lani sounds with original compositions reflecting the journey they had made — moving between love, loss, resilience and hope. The Guardian described it as “a gently haunting, rhythmic set that results from a remarkable personal story, and a little-reported struggle.” BBC Radio 3 and BBC Radio London both featured the record. They performed at the Stonehenge Summer Solstice before a crowd of over 30,000 people, at Glastonbury, at the Mayor of London’s Thames Festival, and at festivals across Europe.
Their second album, Ninalik Arirak (Struggle for Freedom), released in 2013, marked a deepening of the family project — incorporating the voices of all of the Wenda children for the first time.
The family ensemble has continued to grow and perform, carrying the music of the Baliem Valley into new contexts and new countries, insisting through every performance that West Papuan culture is alive, that it belongs to its people, and that no occupation can silence it entirely. For the Wenda family, song and politics are not separate things. They are two expressions of the same conviction: that the people of West Papua exist, that their culture is worth preserving, and that their story deserves to be told.
The Lani Singers’ recordings on Dancing Turtle remain some of the few documents of traditional Lani music available to a global audience. We are proud to have been part of their story.
