INTERVIEW: Jessica Mauboy on music, touring and launching her own record label: "I want to support beautiful, strong, young new generation women - that's where I'm at."
It has been a big 12 months for one of Australia’s most loved artists, Jessica Mauboy. She launched her own record label, Jamally, performed at the first ever Australian version of the iconic Mighty Hoopla festival, launched a beauty range (Desert Rose) and had a full circle moment when she returned to the show that made her a star, Australian Idol, as a guest judge.
For the rest of 2026, Mauboy will be launching into a number of iconic live performances. This week, Mauboy will perform at the legendary Mundi Mundi Festival in the far west NSW outback and will then continue with her powerful headline live show The Story of Me: A Musical Journey Through My Career
First premiered at the Adelaide Cabaret fFestival, The Story of Me sees Mauboy reflect on her incredible career through story and song, opening up about the defining moments of her career, the highs and the setbacks. Growing up in Darwin, Mauboy came to national prominence in 2006 when she was runner up on the fourth season of Australian Idol. She went on to have multiple top 40 hits, a number 1 album with Hilda in 2019, and in 2018 she stepped onto the global stage representing Australia in the Eurovision Sing Contest.
With shows in Nipaluna / Hobart, Ngambri / Canberra, Wadawurrung / Geelong and Naarm / Melbourne throughout September, October and November The Story of Me is a must see performance that offers a rare glimpse into Mauboy’s life as a artist, entrepreneur, and proud Indigenous woman. We recently met up with Mauboy to chat all about her music and her upcoming shows.
Hey Jess! It's been a massive year and a bit for you, entering motherhood and going independent, you've got a couple new babies in your life, I guess! I want to start with going indie. Talk me through a little bit about that decision to launch your own record label Jamally and the challenges and advantages of running your own ship.
You know, it was kind of a challenge to even bring the thought to reality. I'd spent 20 plus years working with labels, and their structure and their politics, and really dedicating myself to what others wanted and felt was best for me. I trusted in that, I'd sign deals and have to, wholeheartedly, with 100% of me fulfil that. I was on a mission for so many years to make great music, to be a good artist, and to make noise with great music, which is the fun place any artist likes to be in. When you're making music, it’s the safest place and feels the best. So regardless of the politics and the things that surround the making of those things, or that come with it, you try not to let it get inside.
I did that for many, many years, gathering tips and tools, and the courage and the ability to dream that one day I would have my own place for that, particularly for the music that I was writing. So around 2024, I was having that conversation with my team so see if that was even doable, or something that they would entertain. Jamally, the name and the identity and the DNA, really came from a place where music started. Soul, R&B, rhythmic pop, everything that I'd listened to, everything that made up the combination of how I was going to write and how I was going to sing. I guess you could call that my other identity or my other place where I go as a thinker and a creator.
‘Jamally’ was originally your alter ego, am I right in saying that?
I would sit with my really great friend back in 2009 while we were writing my first record, and he would joke ‘hey Jamally’, bringing the J and the M to try and create a nickname. It was either J Mau or Jamally, and Jamally really stuck with us. It was very much an alter ego, how I would really like to be. We only ever entertained it in the studio when we were making R& B music. It was between me and the producers I was working with, who were working with some of the biggest names in the world in America, and that's where I wanted to be. Not the artist I wanted to be, but where I wanted to fit in in terms of how I was writing. I didn't think like I would become ‘Jessica Mauboy', my born name, to the world.
But it happened, and I wanted to dedicate this space in Jamally. There’s no agenda, it's purely just to write, and where those sounds are going to sit well. A space that feels like it can be anything it wants to be, no agenda, no politics. It's purely just the magic of music, and how it makes you move in so many special ways.
You touched a little bit on being more in a space you can play now. In the past you have referred to the house you grew up in as the noisiest house on the block. with a family of music lovers. How important was that shared experience and collaboration in music for you starting out, and how has that continued to play a role in your career?
I feel really lucky, because when I reflect back on my childhood, it gave me the space, and the trust, for me to grow into the person that I am today. I have to thank my parents for that, because they were always there, there was always room to ask questions, and to sit at the table and be thought provoking - what is this, what is that, how does that? Why is that? My parents were always struggling to find the answer, but it was so open, and I feel like that really gave me the power to go and dream big. Have the permission to go and venture out and be fearless and not be instilled with fear of not being able to do something. I was always encouraged.
I was one of five girls and we’re all very close, but we weren’t competitive. We were never challenged who was better at something than the other, and that has really flowed into my work ethic and how I like to work. When I collaborate, it's such a free and open and safe space, and that's come from what I was taught. My goal is to continue to dream big, come with ideas and have solutions, and then bring the people in who have those skill sets, because I can't do it all. I want to be in those environments where ideas are explored, and, that's where I'm at with writing music, creating Jamally, creating a beauty product for the first time, and then being a mum and starting my own little family. It has been really special.
I don't know how you fit it all in!
Honestly, it's not easy, there’s multiple levels of challenges, and it's just surrendering to what can be done and then leaving it up to the people who are great at that. I love what I do and I love creating, but I also love making memories, being connected with my mob up in Darwin. That's the biggest one in my life that really grounds me, my family, my little one now, and, and having that continued connection with the place that allowed me to dream big. I can still smell Darwin, every time I shut my eyes, I smell it, it hasn't never gone away. The smell of when the rain is about to hit, or the sunset, or the food, the dry season markets. Those things have really shaped me.
You're an incredible vocalist, and you have been from a very young age. You do a lot of the vocal gymnastics, you’re like the queen of melisma. What were your inspirations when you were growing up and did you do any formal training, or was this a self-learnt style?
It was very interesting. Growing up in the 90s, it was very much dance, big vocals on dance tracks, everything from Black Box to La Bouche to The Real McCoy. They were very, very big voices, and then melodically it was just transcending kind of music.
And then there was the big vocalists, Whitney Houston, Aretha Franklin, Mariah Carey, Bette Midler, Barbara Streisand, they could really take their vocals anywhere and everywhere, and I just made sure that I studied that. I'd sneak into my sister's room, she was the only one who had a stereo, I sometimes would record my voice and listen to it back and practice my vocals. It was very self-taught, very experimental, like I said, my parents allowed us to just explore words and our thoughts. Eventually, after singing in church, our grandparents realised that we loved singing, they would invite us to sing for the congregation for the Indonesian Uniting Church, and that then led to me wanting to sing at school in drama class, and be a part of the shows that the school would put on.
In terms of music foundation, Judy Weepers was my first all-around music and voice choir teacher. I remember our first meeting when I was about six years old. I had interrupted the class by singing, so my teacher, as punishment, said I had to leave the classroom and go into the hallway and face the wall. So I did, and a few minutes later I turned around because I'd heard a voice ask what I was doing in the hallway, and I said I'm in trouble for singing. I looked up, and there was this woman with this fiery red hair and these really blue, piercing eyes. She said, ‘Oh, come with me’ and she took me into the music room.
She opened up the piano, started to do the scales, and she said, ‘can sing these notes back?’, and so I did that, and she did hit the highest note, and her eyes widened. I was very nervous, I didn't know what was going on, but then she said, ‘You're gonna join the choir’. My stomach started churning, I was like, this is a big deal. That was my first experience of structure in music, how it is built, what I need to do to practice, and that became my ritual. Every day I would run home to practice, after every choir session, she'd go, ‘practice, practice, practice, practice makes perfect’. I think of her every day when it comes to my practice, and when I'm about to enter music. In The Story of Me, I dedicate this piece to her, and it's a very special song. She was a guide into a combination of life and my passion that could turn into something bigger than I really understood. It's a big part of my life that I dedicate the show to, and a really special moment that becomes very emotional and almost like dead quiet in the audience, that makes me very like ‘is everyone okay out there because I'm not!’ I'm very grateful that I can bring that memory to light and almost make it as if everyone was there with me. It's one of my favourite parts of the show.
It pays to get in trouble by the sounds of it!
It is! It's challenging, also for the audience, because they don't really know where I'm going to go next, which is nice. I love to kind of keep people feeling like, ‘oh wait, what she's doing?’
It's a totally different kind of show to what I'm used to. I'm used to intense, lights, production, very fast, you know what’s coming up, whereas this show is all feels. And If I go there, and it feels safe, then I will, and if I know the audience is enjoying it, I'll go a little bit deeper than you know.
You got some other things coming up as well, one that stands out is the Mundi Mundi Bash.
Oh my gosh, is I have had dreams about this. This is my first time playing it, so being invited to something so iconic and in such a majestic and magical landscape, I'm not kidding when I say I've had dreams. Dreams about the set list, the structure, how I'm going to go out, what the energy is going to be like. I know it's going to be completely different to what the dreams that I've had been having, and I know it's going to be even more epic. I'm really looking forward to seeing who's coming, to look out into the crowd. Never did I think I'd be playing a stage like that, and also thinking all of these people have probably never heard my music!
The first thought I had was I want to perform my songs, my classics, but wouldn't it be wonderful to do a few covers. I have been thinking very long and hard what those covers would be. It could be ‘Flame Trees’ by Cold Chisel. ‘Time After Time’ by Cyndi Lauper, or ‘Girls Just Want to Have Fun’. I would love to do something that felt that a moment I could connect with the crowd, and it almost feel like a crowd surf, where everyone's involved and everyone's singing together.
What else has been going on for you creatively?
Apart from The Story of Me and Mundi Mundi, I released a live EP in June, a live recording from Mighty Hoopla. That was daunting, because every performance is always different and the idea of putting something live is so raw and authentic. It could go either way, people might listen to it, or people might not. It sounds really good to me, and it felt like a great idea to give to the fans who may have not gone to the show. It's really a timestamp of that time and what I was sounding like.
I am also writing my new record. I don't even know if it's going to a whole body of record, it might be an EP, I don't know, but I'm just in the headspace of good writing and showing up to that space and being vulnerable. Hearing the change since I've become a mum, what does that sound like now, and what's coming up as a message for me. A lot of it is trust, having bub now I’m hyper vigilant and it's just about how can I overcome that, and if overcoming it is just about trusting me, then everything else falls into place. That's what I've been reflecting on. Trust me, then everything might just fit in.
It’s been a lot of fun, because I've been working with Alice Ivy and she's so dope, this is my first time working with her. We met through a song she wrote with Barkaa, they asked me to write a chorus for one of her songs, and we came out with a banger. Working with Alice was just such a dream the first time, and now we've been working together for longer and we've created some really beautiful magic. It’s thought-provoking, things that get under my skin that I've never really said before and I'm digging it. It scares me, but the things that scare you are generally the right things to talk about.
I’m also working with Jem Cassar-Daley and Ruby Rogers, who's such a fantastic writer who's coming up in the world of music. I want to support beautiful, strong, young new generation women - that's where I'm at. Role model leader, and supporting that space for every other woman that needs it.
As a woman who's been in the industry for 20 plus years now, and as someone who was thrust into the limelight at 16 in one of the most pick-you-apart formats that exist, do you think things have changed in that time for women in the music industry, mostly in terms of body imagery, but also the standards that we are held to?
It's such a great question. I came from a time where everything was really quiet. No one said nothing, everyone was too scared to say something. But also I knew there were women in business and women in the industry that were also fighting against that. Tina Arena was someone that I could hear so loud and proud. Kylie Minogue was another one, Deborah Mailman and Christine Anu, for me, were huge.
Now more than ever, everyone's quick to hold you accountable, which I love. It's coming from passion, because of so many years of being silenced, and there being a structured way because of someone else, and to fit into somebody else's shape. I was that too, I was put in a box, and I was told to be the good girl - ‘let me show you around, because I know everything’, and I was like ‘I'm going to do this work and get the fuck out of here.’ I'm going to be 100%, I'm always going to show up, and I'm going to show that I'm really good at this, and maybe that would throw out all the other bullshit, allow me to get straight to the point and get out.
I'm just so happy that it's really developed. I mean, there is still some quietness around the big bosses in the game, but there's so many people to call that out now that you can't hide, and that's a really, really positive thing.
MUNDI MUNDI BASH
20-22 August - Mundi Mundi Plains, Broken Hill, NSW SOLD OUT
THE STORY OF ME TOUR DATES
5 September – Odean, Nipaluna / Hobart
3 October – Canberra Theatre Centre, Ngambri / Canberra
30 October – Geelong Arts Centre, Wadawurrung / Geelong
14 November – Melbourne Recital Centre, Naarm / Melbourne
Tickets available here
Live At Mighty Hoopla Sydney is out now via Jamally Records. You can download and stream here
Follow Jessica Mauboy on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Twitter.
Read our 2019 10 page interview with Jessica Mauboy in issue 7 of Women In Pop Magazine
