'Proud': hall of fame status for Indigenous musician

The Indigenous icon was already on the honour roll as a member of similarly celebrated band Yothu Yindi, becoming one of a handful to be inducted twice.

His family opened Thursday night's celebration of ARIA's 40th anniversary with an emotional tribute to their late relative, who died aged 46 in 2017 after a battle with kidney and liver disease.

Brother-in-law Don Wininba expanded on his family's pride of Gurrumul helping to take Indigenous music to the world.

"We are really proud of him, because he is where his goals were set, he got to this stage where he could always perform and write songs," he told AAP.

"He was trying to show there were two worlds - the white man's way of creating songs, and also the Yolngu way of passing messages to the wider world."

The self-taught multi-instrumentalist, who was born blind, performed around the world including at New York's Carnegie Hall and the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Concert in London.

Mr Wininba, whose family wants to continue to spread their culture through song and dance, spoke to how Gurrumul performed his craft.

"He used to sing with his leaders in ceremonies, circumstance ceremonies like funerals, he would sit and sing with them, that's how he got all the knowledge," he said.

"So when he started writing his own songs, he would pick up the wording from those old leaders, because Gumatj people are really strong people.

ARIA typically inducts one artist a year to its hall of fame, but elevated six to top-tier status on Thursday night as part of its 40th-anniversary celebrations.

Along with Gurrumul, Jenny Morris, Kate Ceberano, Spiderbait, The Living End, and Vika and Linda Bull were awarded.

Accepting Gurrumul's hall of fame nod, Mark Grose, the artist's former manager and collaborator, thanked the fewer than 10,000 people who speak the native Yolngu language for keeping it alive.