With their trademark bass lines provided by Wargi Pindiat and driving guitars from Kenny Moab and Kaul Wartir, the Moab sound is distinctive of the Tolai stringbands. They are one of PNG’s most highly regarded stringbands. This is probably due to Telek’s fame as the lead singer of Painim Wok who in the 1980s was, along with fellow Rabaul act, Barike, one of the biggest bands in PNG, and with West Papua’s Black Brothers, one of the biggest selling acts in the whole of Melanesia.
George Telek wrote this song that calls out for PNG people to eat food from their own village garden in order to grow up healthy and strong. A call out for Papua New Guineans to keep on with a grass roots life. Urban food (and lifestyle) is often expensive and unhealthy. George Telek is a fan of grassroots.
credits
from a Bit na Ta,
released October 11, 2016
Moab Stringband of Raluana village featuring George Telek
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