When “Authentic” Indigenous Music Isn’t: The Mamuna Tribe Story

A haunting vocal melody has been captivating millions on YouTube. Tagged as the “Song of the Mamuna Tribe” from Papua New Guinea, it features what sounds like an isolated indigenous community singing with ethereal, otherworldly beauty. The 10-hour loop video has racked up countless views, even Joe Rogan featured it on his podcast. People are mesmerized, commenting about the “pure,” “untouched,” and “authentic” nature of this tribal music.

There’s just one problem: what they’re hearing isn’t quite what they think it is.

The Real Story

The original footage (the song comes at about 13the minute) comes from travel YouTuber Drew Binsky, who visited the remote Mamuna people in Papua New Guinea and recorded them singing. The authentic tribal singing is beautiful in its own right – raw, communal, and rooted in their living culture.

But the viral version that’s “going crazy” on the internet? That’s the work of Canadian a cappella producer Daniel Hanson, who took Binsky’s recording and “improved” it – adding harmonies, processing the vocals, layering arrangements, and essentially creating a produced musical piece based on the original.

I don’t blame Hanson for his approach –  has been transparent about his role, crediting himself, Binsky, and the Mamuna Tribe on streaming platforms. Yet somehow, in the viral spread across YouTube and social media, this crucial context got lost. Millions of listeners believe they’re hearing unmediated indigenous music – the “real” sound of an isolated tribe singing exactly as they have for generations.

They’re not. They’re hearing a Western musician’s interpretation, filtered through modern production techniques and musical sensibilities. And I just don’t understand, how so many people could be so naiive!?

Why This Matters

You might think: “So what? It’s still beautiful. Does it really matter?”

Yes. It matters profoundly, for several reasons.

First, it’s a form of cultural erasure. The actual Mamuna people sang something specific, embedded in their cultural context, their musical traditions, their way of making meaning together. Hanson’s production transforms that into something palatable for Western ears – something that sounds “spiritual” and “pure” to us. In the process, what the Mamuna people actually created gets replaced by what we want them to sound like.

Second, it perpetuates the “noble savage” myth. People are drawn to this music precisely because they believe it’s untouched, primitive, authentic – as if indigenous peoples exist in some pristine state outside of history and change. The irony is thick: we’re listening to heavily produced digital audio through streaming platforms and calling it “pure.” The real Mamuna people are living, changing humans with their own complex culture, not mystical beings frozen in time.

Third, it raises questions about consent and benefit. Did the Mamuna people consent to having their singing remixed and distributed globally? Are they receiving any compensation from the millions of streams? Who profits when indigenous culture gets packaged and sold – even with good intentions?

Finally, it reveals our disconnection from actual participatory music-making. We’ve become so accustomed to consuming polished, produced music that even when we seek “authenticity,” we can’t recognize it. We prefer the processed version that sounds “better” to our trained ears. We want the idea of indigenous purity, but delivered through Western production values.

The YouTube Problem

This isn’t just about one song. YouTube and social media platforms are full of content that presents indigenous peoples, their practices, and their music as curiosities for Western consumption. Context gets stripped away. Nuance disappears. Attribution becomes murky.

Videos get shared with sensational titles: “Lost tribe sings ancient song!” “Most beautiful indigenous music you’ve ever heard!” “This will give you chills!” The algorithm favors emotional engagement over accuracy. And millions of viewers walk away with a distorted understanding of other cultures – an understanding that often says more about our own fantasies and projections than about the actual people involved.

The comment sections reveal this clearly. People write about being “transported,” feeling “connected to something ancient,” experiencing “what music used to be before commercialization.” They’re essentially using indigenous peoples as props for their own spiritual or aesthetic experiences, without engaging with the reality of those peoples’ lives, challenges, or perspectives.

What Real Authenticity Sounds Like

Here’s an uncomfortable truth: truly authentic indigenous music often doesn’t sound “beautiful” to untrained Western ears. It might be rhythmically complex in ways that confuse us. It might use vocal techniques that sound harsh or strange. It might lack the harmonic resolution we expect. It exists within a cultural context we don’t understand, serving functions we don’t recognize.

Real musical authenticity isn’t about achieving some pristine, spiritual sound that makes us feel good. It’s about people making music together in their own way, for their own reasons, on their own terms – whether or not it pleases outside listeners.

When we go seeking “pure” and “authentic” indigenous music, we should ask ourselves: What are we really looking for? Are we interested in understanding these cultures on their own terms? Or are we just looking for an exotic soundtrack to our own fantasies about simplicity and purity?

Moving Forward

None of this means we can’t appreciate or be moved by music from other cultures. But we should:

• Seek out the actual context. Who are these people? What does this music mean in their culture? How is it traditionally performed and why?
• Question the production. Has this been altered, remixed, or “improved” for Western audiences? If so, acknowledge that we’re not hearing the original.
• Follow the money. Who benefits from the viral spread of this content? Are the actual culture bearers being compensated and credited?
• Resist romanticization. Indigenous peoples aren’t mystical beings or relics of the past. They’re contemporary people with agency, facing real challenges – often including cultural erosion from exactly this kind of appropriation.
• Support authentic access. When possible, seek out music directly from the communities themselves, in contexts where they control the presentation and benefit from the sharing.

The Irony

The deepest irony of the Mamuna Tribe viral phenomenon is this: People are drawn to it because they’re hungry for something real, something human, something that feels like genuine connection through music. They sense, rightly, that something is missing from our processed, algorithm-curated, AI-generated musical landscape.

But instead of engaging in participatory music-making themselves – singing with others, drumming in community, creating music as social activity rather than consuming it as product – they click play on a 10-hour loop of what they mistakenly believe is “authentic” indigenous music, and listen passively.

They’re seeking real human musicking – but settling for its commodified shadow.

If we truly want to connect with what music means and has always meant for humans, including the Mamuna people, we don’t need to consume more exotic content on YouTube. We need to make music with each other, in our own communities, with our own voices and bodies.

That’s the authenticity we’re actually craving. And no amount of clicking play on tribal music compilations will satisfy that hunger.

The Mamuna people know this. They’re not sitting around listening to music. They’re singing together.

Maybe we should follow their actual example, not the fantasy version YouTube sold us.

Photo: a screen grab from YouTube