Famous for his two songs, “Lewa” and “Life Ino Easy More”, Mal Meninga Kuri was the featured artist of the month under the Yumi FM Local Strings Wantem Nescafe Original 3 in 1.
Kuri shared with Yumi FM and with his fans, a glimpse into his musical career as a local artist and how he rose to stardom.
At the age of 13, Kuri had a passion for music where he started writing songs for fun.
He was inspired by some great singers in the likes of Gedix Atege at the local scene and international band, MLTR.
He would put in a lot of effort into writing lyrics, Kuri recalls.
“We have heard stories of so many things in our lives; therefore, what I want to do is to put them in a song form so people will listen and understand through lyrics so that they can feel motivated and inspired since music is a universal language,” Kuri said.
In 2004, the young aspiring artist went to Port Moresby where he attended Wardstrip Demonstration Primary School where he continued to write songs during his free time and recalled back to his schooling days when his best friend who was also into making music, would help him record a few of his songs.
“My best friend recorded at least two of my songs and my family would hear these songs and encourage me to sing more which gave me motivation.”
“From then onwards, I wrote a number of songs and gave them to a few famous singers back then to sing them for me. At an early age, I created a lot of local songs but they were never released,” said Kuri.
It was not until 2013 that Kuri’s first song successfully got released and thereafter, that Kuri went on to successfully release a good number of his singles.
Kuri has now been in the Music Industry for twenty years and said that he has enjoyed his time making music for his fans.
“I love to promote PNG music, especially Engan music as I see a lot of upcoming talents from my province who have the passion for singing. For my case, I want to give a different taste to the audience and try to use the Engan language in different styles of music.”
‘Mali Music’ is the Music Brand Name in which his songs come under.
Kuri has said that for this year, he will be doing merchandises like shirts, caps, bags, etc and looks forward to introducing his new line of merchandise soon.
He expressed how excited he is and for what the year has in store for him.
Kuri will be hosting an upcoming gig on the 1st of April live and exclusive at Club Illusion in Port Moresby followed by another live performance in Lae, Morobe Province at Club 99.
The purpose of the performance in Lae is for school fee fundraising for the Papua New Guinea University of Technology (UNITECH) Enga Students Association, which will be held on the 9th of April.
“During these events, I will be performing and singing most of my hit songs from 2018 to 2021 and will also be singing three of my new releases that are currently on the YumiFM Top 20s and NauFM Top 25 which are ‘Lewa’, ‘Life Ino Easy More’ and Kaimi.”
Kuri added that he will also be performing at a two-day event in Mt Hagen, Western Highlands Province.
The first day will be on the 22nd of April in which there will be a Kid’s Show and on the 23rd, a live performance at Sunrise Club.
“Apart from performing in Papua New Guinea, I am also planning ahead to perform abroad for a Queensland and NSW Tour on September of this year, in hopefully eight different venues.”
In addition to his plans for the year, Kuri is currently working on a new Album called ‘Malinizim Heart’.
He has so far released six songs from that album which are Bonus Tracks whilst nine are yet to be released totaling to fifteen songs altogether for the Album alone.
Kuri is thankful to his fans for the support and for the encouragement.
He added that it is because of them that he is where he is today and hopes to maintain a good relationship with his fans through his music.