INTERVIEW: Jessica Mauboy releases new single 'While I Got Time' and launches own record label: "I want to be the thread that keeps weaving, and that keeps bringing voices to the surface"

Interview: Jett Tattersall
Published: 3 August 2025

Australian icon Jessica Mauboy has released her new single, ‘While I Got Time’, the first release on her newly formed record label Jamally.

Written with and produced by Mauboy’s long time collaborator PJ Harding, ‘While I Got Time’ is a gorgeously pared back ballad featuring little more than guitar, piano and Mauboy’s beautiful vocal, before swelling with strings in the middle of the track.

The song is an emotive look at letting go and things that no longer serves you and focusing on the important things in life. “They're holding on to stories / That no longer have a place…But I'll step into the great unknown / With only love and grace.”

With the song’s theme of renewal and moving on, it will play a major part in an upcoming storyline in Australian television drama Home and Away as Irene Roberts, played by Lynne McGranger, departs the show after 33 years.

“'While I Got Time' really came from a place of reflection and release,” says Mauboy. “PJ and I wrote it during a moment where I was thinking about what I want to leave behind, and what I want to lean into while I’m still here. It’s about letting go of the past with grace, honouring where I’ve been, and stepping into the unknown with open arms.”

The single also marks a momentous occasion in Mauboy’s career as the debut release on her own record label, Jamally.

This is the start of a new chapter for me - not just as a singer or performer, but as a storyteller and businesswoman too,” Mauboy says. “After launching my beauty brand Desert Rose, creating Jamally felt like a natural evolution. It lets me work with people I trust and chase what lights me up,”

Mauboy will perform ‘While I Got Time’ live for the first time at the 2025 National Indigenous Music Awards (NIMAs) on Saturday 9 August, when she will be recognised for her outstanding contribution to music and culture with an induction in the NIMA Hall of Fame. Mauboy has previously won multiple NIMA Awards including Artist of the Year four times.

Opening up a bold, adventurous era for Mauboy, ‘While I Got Time’ is steeped in beauty and emotion, and is a mesmerising reminder of just what a powerful artist she is. We recently sat down with her to chat about her new music and what the future holds for her with the launch of Jamally and this new chapter in her career.

Hi Jessica! It is so lovely to see you and hear from you again. Let's talk a little bit about ‘While I Got Time’. It is such a campfire of a track, I can see all the colours, it is cinematic and so so beautiful. Talk to me about where this track came from, because it's just immense in its simplicity.
Thank you for sharing that, because it is how I felt going into writing the song. I got the call asking if I wanted the opportunity to write a song for something two months after just becoming a mother. It was very brief, my publishers didn’t give me too much information and I wasn't quite sure. I think I was just really flooded with emotion, very new to being a mum, and it was quite an overwhelming conversation over the phone. They really wanted this for me, but I just didn't have enough information to know if I wanted it.

I knew I wanted to write, and I was really itching to get back into the studio and gather some people to start writing music. So I went in with a really good friend, PJ Harding, and the track was crafted from the little bio that we had, and which that is had to be something that felt like it was going the distance, or letting go, or grieving, but also embracing the future with openness and curiosity. I instantly thought of my family and being away from them, and PJ felt the same. He had just had family that had left to live in another country and we were in the right space for it in a way.

It was some really deep reflection, focusing on what really matters in the world and what we would like to leave behind. That empowerment, that fear, but also curiosity, was the driver of this song. We could see the colours of the landscape of this country, and having travelled all around it, and the people that have come into our lives and that have passed, and it was representing those things.

Eventually, we found out what the song was for, we got a video from the amazing Lynn McGranger, who plays Irene Roberts, leaving the show and going onto new things, I just bawled my eyes out. We created a demo in half a day and got the video of Lynn listening to it one week later, and then we were like let’s work on it a little bit more, let's bring in some strings, let's do a little more picking on the guitar. Having that really important part of the information of what the song was for was like the icing on top. We knew that we already had something powerful, but putting it together with Lynn for Irene, for Home and Away, was kind of was really surprising but really powerful, because I'd never done something like that.

It's just perfection. And what's insanely beautiful about it is so immense, but there's nothing cloying about it, and there's nothing specific about it, it's the most universal song of reflection. Always remember to tell people you love them when they're in front of you, because they're not always going to be there. People fall out of each other's lives, and it's such a perfect song for that. So I love that. And also, let's face it, Irene has raised a lot of us!
I actually said that yesterday! I've grown up listening to her words, and how she feels and how she reacts and how that affects her. So putting that together was magic for us to write and be in that space. When we left the studio, PJ and I were just texting, going, ‘this is so good, this is powerful, and it's just sits in a space where it's kind of everything’. And it is, if you sat there, you would think of everything listening to it and be completely open. As you mentioned, it's not over exaggerated. We didn't want it to be just like a chunk, we wanted it to be quite floaty and wispy, and just easy to listen to.

There's a lot to unpack psychologically, but it's kind of nice. I feel safe doing it, because writing this song and listening to it, that's how it felt.

That’s such a beautiful way to describe it. I feel like your music, particularly over the last 12 months, has become so grounded, and it comes from the belly. You seem to have this ferocity in yourself but it is so gentle. You've had this incredible career, and now you've got your label, it feels like this is you finding exactly where you're at and where who you are.
Absolutely you've literally hit the nail on the head. This song has been born from control, and such in depth control, that wants to be free, you know. I'd been pretty much since the age of 16 with labels, and politics and sometimes a struggle of having my voice hit the the surface. The only way that I knew was to sing and hopefully that could be heard, until I gathered the tools and gathered the advice and realised I did have what it takes, and I had the ability to create a space where I felt I could do that. And Jamally is a safe space for my thoughts and my craft and to represent that nature that I carry, and how I want to sing and who I want to work with. When I thought about doing it, at first it was like, oh no, I can't do that, I can't run a label. But it was literally as easy as telling myself how do you want the music to sound and how do you want it to be treated. And I knew all of those things, it was just saying ‘I'm going to do it’. After doing it, I just felt relieved and a lot less scared, because I just thought I wouldn't be able to do it, or that I wasn't worthy enough to have my own space. There's been a lot of firsts this year, but it's been really exciting.

Oh, my God, it is no easy feat because imposter syndrome runs right through this country, this world, society, women in general. The way we see you is just the most incredible collaborator and advocate for women in music, you are off the charts. You just do so much, and everyone just adores you, so why would you not want to pull everything further together under your own label?
I think it was about that, and I really thank you for saying that Jett, because for it's always been about pulling together creatives and sharing and being fair and coming from a [major] label, it was just all about me, me, me. A lot of the times that would hurt me, because it was never really how I represented myself. Coming from community, coming from Darwin, everyone shared. I shared with five of my sisters. Everything was literally pulled apart - you get this, you get that. That's all I've ever known. I always felt a push and pull working with big dogs. I just always knew in my gut, one day it'll happen. I'll have a space where my music can sit and feel like it's represented well, and it is collaborative, and it's very fair. That's was always underneath everything that I went into, or everything that I put my mind to, whatever project it was. It was always focused on, it's safe, it's fair, everyone gets heard - and also, let's have fun!

Doing Like A Version, working with 3% doing ‘Won't Stop’ working with First Nations people was never considered a thing back when I was working with the people I was working with, and it confused the heck out of me. It was like, I don't get it, I'm a sharer, and I work with people, I see it, and I know this is going to work. And there was always that kind of hold back from others. And I want to be in it. I want to be a part of it. I want to be the thread that keeps weaving, and that keeps bringing voices to the surface, and that keeps demonstrating the shift. And that music for First Nations people is diverse, we can be in all pockets. It's not just your way of storytelling, of country music, it could be anything. So my advocacy or my goal as an artist was to break away from being a small town girl, and showcasing that I can be in this space and that I can make music the way I feel it and the way I see it and remain genuine.

I feel really proud to have been in those pockets and remained really thoughtful and open and also respectful. There's still so much more to do and I'm so excited. ‘While I Got Time’ is literally just the beginning of something fresh, and for me a fresh with clear eyes and no holding back space and place.

Seeing this shift in the music that's coming out, and this shift in your creativity and your projects, it now it feels like you're allowed to have the appetite that you've always had for music, and who you're working with and what you want to do, and it's just genuinely so beautiful to hear and watch.
And that's exactly how I feel. I'm still pretty picky and choosy, when it just fits right, like doing Like A Version with Barkaa, man was that a dream. I slept on that for so long. I remember when she came out, there was this kind of raw, lion like energy that came out. I was like, holy shit, this is incredible. What am I watching? Where has this been? And this time, it just felt like the universe was going you need to start making noise, or being a part of something that you've always wanted to do. I had done that ‘World Turning’ version maybe two years ago, I said I've always loved this Youth Yindi song, I grew up with this song, and I feel like it is my theme song of growth. And I sat there and I said, let's break it down, let’s do it in half time, take out the garage band sound, put 808s in, and let me just do melismatic vocals on it. Let me vocalise on it. And i did a few takes and I was like this is something great. I don't know what I'm going to use it for, but somewhere in the future, this is going to be something.

When I got the call from Like A Version and normally they play what's new and fresh, or what people are listening to or voting for. But I asked if I could I take something back way further, I have this song and I have this dream of Barkaa being on it. And the process took a little bit longer, because I don't think they were ready for what I was going to serve. I think they just had something else in mind, but I was like, no, I have to do this song, we're coming up to NAIDOC Week, I really want to represent and I feel this song will really resonate, and Barkaa will come with something, she always does.

I had a Zoom with Barkaa, we'd never done anything musically together, and I was like, oh my god, I can't believe this is happening, and she was the same. We were just screaming at each other! I played her the track, I sent it over, and I literally hadn't heard anything until we went into the studio to record. And I just bawled my eyes out, I said, this is just everything, everything that you stand for, the weight of what you carry, and your love for community and the love for culture and language and First Nations people. I knew that it was going to be big, and I'm so proud of that collaboration because I stuck to my instincts and what I believed in was going to work. I'm really proud of that project.

‘While I Got Time’ is out now via Jamally. You can download and stream here.
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Read our 2019 10 page interview with Jessica Mauboy in issue 7 of Women In Pop Magazine