Bart Willoughby

Who is Bart Willoughby?

Bart Willoughby is an Indigenous Australian musician, noted for his pioneering fusion of reggae with Indigenous Australian musical influences, and for his contribution to growth of Indigenous music in Australia.

A Pitjantjatjara man of the Mirning dreaming, his totem is the whale. He is Kuthatha through his father and Mirning through his mother. He grew up at Koonibba Aboriginal Mission near Ceduna on the South Australian edge of the Nullarbor Plain on the Great Australian Bight. At 14 years of age, after spending some time in a boys' facility, Willoughby found his way to the Centre for Aboriginal Studies in Music, at the University of Adelaide, where he was introduced to music including drumming, singing and guitar playing.