Nai Palm

Nai Palm is the kind of artist that arrives once in a generation.

A three-time Grammy nominated songwriter from Australia. She is a composer, instrumentalist, producer, vocalist and poet who approaches these self-taught disciplines with an intuitive, infectious grace, which has sent her on a journey to sculpt songs that have been received and treasured across the world.

It is a world she has travelled many times over with her band Hiatus Kaiyote who, along with Nai Palm, have become household names since they first began playing together in Melbourne in 2011.

Hiatus Kaiyote broke internationally in 2012 with their first LP, Tawk Tomahawk, which was praised by simpatico musical travellers from Erykah Badu to Questlove to Prince, and embraced by DJs like the BBC’s Gilles Peterson, DJ Jazzy Jeff and Anthony Valadez (KCRW/Morning Becomes Eclectic). Their first R&B Grammy nomination, for their song “Nakamarra,” was followed by a second for “Breathing Underwater,” from their sophomore album, 2015’s Choose Your Weapon. Still, their music defied categorization: Some called it “neo-soul,” others “future soul”; the band calls it, simply, wondercore. Their music found fans in hip-hop, sampled on songs by The Carters (Beyonce & Jay-Z), Kendrick Lamar, Anderson .Paak, Chance The Rapper, and Drake—with whom Nai Palm collaborated on his Scorpion album; and in jazz, when Robert Glasper invited the band to appear on his album of Miles Davis remakes, Everything’s Beautiful.

Their records and live shows won them raves in The Guardian, Rolling Stone, and in the New York Times, where Jon Pareles wrote that “Hiatus Kaiyote’s music stretches and bends every parameter.”

That spirit of blending began with Nai, growing up in her mother Suzie Ashman’s Melbourne home, vibrating with the sounds of Motown and flamenco, African music and hip-hop. After her mother died of breast cancer, the 11-year-old Nai went to live with a foster family high in the Australian Alps. By the time the adolescent Nai found her way back to Melbourne, she had acquired three things: an abiding, spiritual connection to the land; an uncanny, self-taught mastery of two instruments, the guitar and her own voice; and the ability to write songs that were as complex as her influences.