She’s the real voice: Jacinta Price’s hip-hop and country singing career revealed

Forget the Voice to Parliament – the real voice of Australia belongs to Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, who has “extensive talent” as a hip-hop artist and country singer.

The real slim shady? Jacinta Price like yo’ve never seen her.

Forget the Voice to Parliament debate – the real voice of Australia belongs to Jacinta Nampijinpa Price.

Recordings have resurfaced of the shadow minister for Indigenous Australians’ recording career, where her talent for performing for a crowd would later turn into a skill giving speeches or debating in the Senate.

Ms Price told The Daily Telegraph that art, music, and words had always been a big part of her life growing up.

Her mother, Bess Nungarrayi Price, is a prominent and well known Indigenous artist, while her father Dave Price has a Masters of Letters and spent much of his career as a teacher.

“I probably started performing hip-hop from the age of 15 with a group of cousins and school friends in a group we called Flava 4,” she said.

Jacinta Price performing with Catch the Fly at the 2012 Penrith Battle of the Bands. Pic Supplied.

Looking back, Ms Price said there was a connection between that era of her music and her later career in politics and her very public focus advocating for Aboriginal communities.

“The whole idea of creating music for us as Indigenous youth was that it was about influencing our peers positively and demonstrating that it was wrong to think that all our Aboriginal peers were up to no good.”

Bradley "Bruiser" Braun, Dan "The Underdog" McAleer, Jacinta "Sassy J" Price and Ash "McDee" McDonell backstage at the Sydney Global Battle of the Bands gig.

Flava 4 would become the Alice Springs based hip-hop group Catch the Fly, performing under stage name Sassy J.

Later she shifted gears to a more country and blues sound with the release of Dry River, which was produced by Bill Chambers – father of the legendary Kasey Chambers – in late 2013.

At the time, the ABC said the album was “testament to Jacinta’s extensive talent.”

Ms Price said that music and singing remains a big part of her life.

“I started out being a prolific singer in my primary school choir from Year One and performed in lots of eisteddfods,” she said.

Jacinta Price performing at Music NT's intune conference. SUPPLIED

“When I was about 10 I took up the violin and played that until I was about 14 when like a typical teenager I thought it was daggy and decided I’d rather get involved in hip hp instead.

“The last time I sang in public my husband Colin Lillie dragged me up on stage at the Port Arlington Celtic Festival a couple of months ago.

“Music was always a big part of our lives growing up, my parents played all sorts of music and there was a real expression for music in the house.

“Whether artistically or musically or putting together an argument with words, this creative impulse has always run strong in our family.”