Jessica Mauboy ends contract with Sony Music, signs deal with Warner Music

In a surprising split for the pop singer, Jessica Mauboy is moving on after a 16-year partnership.

Pop singer Jessica Mauboy has ended her 16-year relationship with Sony Music Australia.

Confidential can reveal the top Australian artist on Friday signed a new recording deal with rival label Warner Music after months of negotiations.

“I have had an incredible journey with Sony, for which I will forever be grateful,” Mauboy said. “It is now time for the next chapter of my career and I’m very excited to be joining the team at Warner Music. I have been spending my time in studio lately and looking forward to releasing new music in the new year.”

Top Australian singer Jessica Mauboy.

Jessica Mauboy at the 2020 ARIA Awards. Picture: Don Arnold/Getty Images

Mauboy, 31, is understood to have been off contract with Sony for nearly a year with the singer and her management in ongoing discussions with the label.

On Friday, she made the decision to sign with Warner Music, which will see a changing of the guard in 2021 with outgoing ARIA chief Dan Rosen taking over from Niko Nordstrom.

Mauboy first signed a deal with Sony Music in 2004 after winning a talent competition at the Tamworth Country Music Festival. She subsequently released her first single with the label, a cover of Cyndi Lauper’s Girls Just Want To Have Fun.

Two years later, she placed runner-up in the Australian Idol grand final to Damien Leith and signed an ongoing contract with Sony.

From there, she went on to become one of our top recording artists and made history as our first Indigenous Australian to make number one on the ARIA album chart.

Jessica Mauboy and Damien Leith as finalists on the 2006 season of Australian Idol.

Having toured the country with Beyonce and performed for former US President Barack Obama, Oprah Winfrey and Ellen DeGeneres, she won an AACTA Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in critically acclaimed film, The Sapphires, in 2013.

A representative from Sony Music said: “It has been a wonderful journey working with Jess over the last fourteen years. We wish Jess all the very best for the next stage of her career.”

On the home front, Mauboy will return to Darwin with her fiance Themeli Magripilis for Christmas.

The couple is understood to be taking the newest addition of their family, a pet pooch named Leo, to meet their extended family in the Northern Territory.

Going in to the new year, industry rumours suggest Mauboy will be a judge on the new look The Voice on Channel 7.