AUM Creative PR + Artist Management

 

AUM is a PR + Artist Management agency with an emphasis on amplifying First Nations voices, and a 20-year record of success at home and overseas. Based in Darwin, Melbourne and Mullumbimby, AUM employs a lean, highly focused team dedicated to nurturing and celebrating unique and important artists while raising public awareness of their cultural value with positivity, sustainability and integrity. 

AUM's first success story in the cultural space was the late, deeply revered Elcho Island singer-songwriter Dr. Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu, whose extraordinary talent and instinctive and uncompromised musical vision remains a benchmark and beacon for the creative communities of Indigenous Australia. 

Under AUM's guidance, Melbourne-based rock artist Dan Sultan and oud virtuoso Joseph Tawadros soon followed in Gurrumul's ARIA-winning footsteps. AUM gave Shepparton hip-hop powerhouse Briggs his first mainstream media exposure via his interpretation of Archie Roach's Took The Children Away. 

In 2011, AUM began the five-year transformation of the Darwin-based NT Indigenous Awards into the prestigious National Indigenous Awards. In 2015, AUM transitioned into Artist Management and spearheaded the skyrocketing profile and success story of Arnhem Land hip-hop sensation Baker Boy and talented teenager KIAN.

In 2023, AUM's Management/Publicity clients include 2020 NIMA-winning artists Rrawun Maymuru and Nick Wales, NIMA nominated artists MAU POWER and Benny Walker, Julian Belbachir, rapidly rising NT rappers Yung Milla, his brah J-MILLA who recently took home the Archie Roach Foundation Award, nominated for ‘Best New Talent of the Year’ at the 2021 NIMA’s, 2021 Winner - Needle In the Hay competition - Australia’s largest independent music prize, was ‘handpicked’ for the inaugural 2020 The BIGSOUND50 artists to watch, kick started Tik Tok’s week long series of concerts for NAIDOC Week 2020 and was interviewed on Channel Ten news show The Project.

Chryss Carr 
Artist Manager & Senior Publicist

Chryss Carr is among the most uniquely accomplished management and promotions professionals in Australian music. From trial by fire at Mushroom Records as a teenager to her trailblazing work with breakthrough First Nations musicians in the new century, she has helped turn landmark Australian artists into household names from Melbourne to Darwin for more than 30 years.

Chryss founded AUM in Darwin in 1999, after 17 years working in the top echelons of international promotions. With Mushroom, Virgin and EMI she worked on major campaigns for David Bowie, Lenny Kravitz, Massive Attack, Culture Club and Madness. Six years as International Director of Marketing for the South Sea Pearl Consortium honed her PR skills at the luxury end of the global marketplace of Vogue and Valentino.

With AUM she prioritised cultural engagement, social responsibility and unique homegrown talent with a roster of voices — Gurrumul, Dan Sultan, Benny Walker, Gawurra, Baker Boy — who would spearhead a new wave of distinguished First Nations success stories. She helped put the Darwin Festival and the National Indigenous Music Awards on the national media map, and remains a highly respected advocate for the self-determined expression of First Nations artists.

While focused mainly on artist management, Chryss Carr’s unique and highly respected PR experience in the Indigenous arts sphere has been called upon by Midnight Oil for their historic The Makarrata Project, out in October 2020.

“Having been in the industry as long as I have I’ve learnt how to play the game and simultaneously maintain a deep seated integrity.” Says Chryss Carr 

Cooper-Lily Nikora
Publicist & Day to Day Manager

Cooper-Lily Nikora [Māori Te Arawa, Ngati Whakaue and Tūhoe iwi’s] is Head of Publicity at AUM PR & MGMT. She began in the cultural sector in 2015 as label assistant and publicist for WANTOK Musik, the highly esteemed and awarded independent record label responsible for Emily Wurramarra, Frank Yamma, Black Rock Band, George Telek and many more First Nations artists in Australia and beyond. 

At AUM her successes have included Midnight Oil - The Makarrata Project, 2021 Byron Bluesfest, Boomerang Festival, NIMAs, and Dan Sultan, as well as creating and implementing breakthrough campaigns for J-MILLA, Baker Boy, KIAN and Dallas Woods. She brings her cultural intelligence to all PR campaigns for the many First Nation artists on the AUM roster.