Artist

Nancy Bates

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Nancy Bates is a Barkindji Song Woman with Ancestral ties to communities along the Baaka (the Darling River), a singer-songwriter whose work fuses country, folk, and soul with fearless storytelling. A former guitarist and vocalist with the late Archie Roach, she toured nationally and internationally, including Festival Interceltique de Lorient (France), carrying forward a lineage of truth-telling through song.

In 2025, Nancy showcased at the International Indigenous Music Summit (Toronto) and wrote the theme song “Panic Yes/No” for Ars Electronica (Austria) performing multiple times in Linz across the festival. She is the founder of Blak Country, presented at Adelaide Guitar Festival 2024 & 2025 and on a Country Arts SA regional tour in 2025, centring First Nations intergeneration voices on major stages.

Nancy played a key creative role in the award-winning film Songs Inside, a powerful portrait of music holding women through incarceration. Her live reputation is formidable: “A voice that stops the room—pure, powerful, and profoundly moving” (The Advertiser); “An artist of rare truth and beauty” (Adelaide Review).

Career highlights include Runner-Up, Listen Up Australia Songwriting Prize, Adelaide Festival Walk of Fame, and a Tina Arena Special Impact Award nomination (AWMA). Sovereign, soulful, and globally resonant, Nancy Bates stands among the leading Indigenous voices shaping contemporary Australian music.

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