Mari Boine

About Mari Boine

Mari Boine is the most important Sámi musician of the modern era and the artist who brought the indigenous joik song-form to a global audience. Born in Karasjok in the Norwegian Arctic, she grew up under a Norwegian assimilation policy that banned the Sámi language and stigmatised joik as primitive. Her 1989 album Gula Gula reclaimed the tradition, fusing joik with jazz, rock, and world music, and turned her into a symbol of Sámi cultural revival. She has performed for the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony and recorded with Jan Garbarek and Herbie Hancock.