Kate Ceberano's Brave

This exploration of the Australian pop solo debut Brave (1989) by Kate Ceberano identifies the album as a bold feminist foundation for finding voice within Black musical genres against a white Australian cultural landscape.

Australian songstress Kate Ceberano has had an illustrious musical career for over four decades. The success of her solo debut Australian album Brave (1989), with five hit singles and triple platinum sales, was pivotal in launching her career to a mainstream audience. The album provided an Australian voice to funk, dance and jazz with a pop spin. Brave in title and brave in nature, this is a telling of Ceberano’s determination to record an album on her own terms, which is demonstrated to be a postfeminist act of resistance and resilience.

Brave captures a powerful female voice, which also happens to be the voice of an Australian woman of colour. The book examines how Ceberano's voice, evocative of her identity, soulfully breaks through the cultural milieu of the whiteness and male dominance of Australian rock and pop of the 1980s.