Kora

Kora is a New Zealand five-piece music group, which consists of four brothers from the Kora family. The band, which originally began in Whakatane, New Zealand fuses elements of reggae, rock, dub, roots, funk, and more recently space funk and dub step elements. Kora brothers Laughton, Francis, Stuart and Brad began playing together in the early 1990s in a band called ’Aunty Beatrice’, which won the 1991 Rockquest competition and the Battle Of The Bands three years in a row, earning a release on Tangata Records. Dan McGruer, the only non-related member of Kora, studied commercial music at Whitireia Community Polytechnic and joined up with Laughton when they performed together in Queenstown band Soul Charge. In early 2002, core members Laughton and Dan recorded a four-song demo while living in Queenstown. Later that year the demo caught the attention of Wellington-based record label Recordings Aot(ear)oa who, in December, released the song "Barely Can See" on their LOOP Select 004 compilation album. In 2002, Kora was formed.