Independent Melbourne band Hiatus Kaiyote gets Grammy nod Melbourne soul band Hiatus Kaiyote has been nominated for a Grammy award. Melbourne soul band Hiatus Kaiyote relayed a historic development in Australian music via their Facebook page: "Soo... this happened... nominated for a GRAMMY!!! The Best R&B Performance nomination for their song, Nakamarra, featuring A Tribe Called Quest legend Q-Tip, marks the first time an Australian band has been recognised in an R&B category at America's most prestigious music industry event. Not even the Bee Gees at their jive-talkin' peak cracked the category best defined by serial winners such as Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder, Prince, John Legend and Beyonce. For Hiatus Kaiyote bassist/ producer Paul Bender, the news has capped a surreal trip since Tawk Tomahawk, their debut album, was recorded in a rented house in Melbourne's inner north. "I'm pretty sure we've sold what you would technically call sweet f - all," he said, fresh from a five-week tour of the US and Europe. I think we've made some money from people buying it on vinyl, which is cool . . . [but] we're not in that category of selling a whole lot of records. In those terms, the Melbourne quartet fronted by vocalist Nai Palm is eclipsed, to say the least, by fellow (American) nominees Anthony Hamilton, Miguel and Tamar Braxton, whose Love and War album sold 114,000 in the US in one week in August. Hiatus Kaiyote, who formed in a musicians' sharehouse in Clarke Street, Northcote, initially released Tawk Tomahawk via indie distribution portal bandcamp.com in 2011. Word went global after they supported jazz/ hip-hop artist Taylor McFerrin at the Esplanade Hotel in St Kilda last year. Significant airplay followed on influential public radio station KCRW in Santa Monica. "The video for Nakamarra started getting noticed by people like ?uestlove and Erykah Badu," Paul Bender says. As soon as someone of that stature starts tweeting about it ... it sort of spread from there. The album was picked up this year by New-York based Sony Music label Flying Buddha, run by renowned American hip-hop producer Salaam Remi (The Fugees, Amy Winehouse). The nominated version of Nakamarra, featuring Q-Tip, was "one of many crazy surprises along the way," Bender says. For him, the best result of the Grammy nod would be "for people to start looking to Australia for really innovative and fresh music ... cause there's so much going on here it's ridiculous." If Hiatus Kaiyote's name gets called at the 56th Annual Grammy Awards at the Staples Centre in Los Angeles on January 26, "we can also hope that Kanye is gonna storm the stage and do something really bizarre," he adds. I'd enjoy that more than anything.