Jessica Mauboy: ‘A lot of healing needs to be done’

Jessica Mauboy has weighed in on the upcoming Voice To Parliament referendum, telling political leaders; “If you’re not living in these places... you can’t experience the harshness firsthand.”

When Jessica Mauboy was a young girl growing up in the Darwin suburb of Wulagi on Larrakia Country, she used to jump on her bike after school and ride down to Dripstone Cliffs

at Casuarina Beach. “Watch out for cars,” her mum would yell down the street as her daughter cycled away. Once she was at the Timor Sea, Mauboy would sink her toes into the sand, look to the water and whisper mantras. “One day, I’m gonna sing at the Darwin Show,” she willed. “One day, I’m gonna be a songwriter. One day, I’m gonna be on the cover of a magazine full of First Nations people celebrating Blak excellence.”

When Mauboy did first see a magazine with an Aboriginal person on the cover, she says, “I bought them all. It was Aunty Cathy [Freeman] on the front, and I wanted to frame it.”

So when she recently stood on the shores of Maroubra Beach in Eora (Sydney) to shoot her fifth cover for Stellar, this time fronting our inaugural First Nations issue, Mauboy couldn’t help but reflect on what had come to be.

Jessica Mauboy on the cover of Stellar’s First Nations issue, in Sunday papers this weekend.

“While we were doing the shoot at Maroubra, I kept thinking about Casuarina Beach and dreaming of home,” she says. “I told the ocean: ‘I’m coming home.’”

And now, as Mauboy sits down to speak with Stellar, she is in fact home. We’re at her parents’ place – lovingly known as The Mauboy House. Some things have changed: there is a new patio, and her father is currently in the process of building her mum an outdoor kitchen. Others, however, have remained exactly the same. “As kids, me and my sisters were always humming,” Mauboy – the fourth of five daughters – recalls. “I drove my family crazy singing every single Whitney Houston song for the whole neighbourhood to hear.” Her house, she remembers, was always the loudest on the street. It still is.

It’s a typically sticky day in Darwin, and that’s just how Mauboy likes it. “Whenever I land in Darwin and those plane doors open and the heat and smoky air rushes in, it always feels like I never left. I’m home,” she says, flashing her trademark smile. “It’s super grounding and healing being here, and almost carefree. Darwin runs on its own time, and you’ve just got to go with it.”

Things have a way of coming full circle for Mauboy, 33, who burst onto the music scene as a 16-year-old standing in the red dirt of Mparntwe (Alice Springs), singing – what else? – Whitney Houston at her audition for the fourth season of Australian Idol. The one-time talent show contestant is now a talent show coach on the Seven Network’s The Voice Australia, alongside Rita Ora, Jason Derulo and Guy Sebastian.

““If I wasn’t doing music, I would be teaching it, so being on The Voice is everything I’ve ever wanted to do,” says Mauboy. Picture: Bec Parsons

It’s her third year on the series, and she takes her duties seriously. “This is literally my dream job,” she insists. “If I wasn’t doing music, I would be teaching it, so being on The Voice is everything I’ve ever wanted to do. It takes me a few hours to wind down after filming because I can’t believe I get to connect with such incredible humans and help them reach their goals and strive in their own skin. It’s a gift.”

Along with the responsibility she feels to her contestants, Mauboy also feels a responsibility to her community. As a Kuku Yalanji and Wakaman woman, she knows all too well how important it is to embody representation. “I grew up surrounded by Aboriginal culture, but I didn’t see enough of it commercially [on TV or in the media]. That drove me to want to be someone the younger generation could see. I wanted to be a leader for my community and for all my cousins who struggle and feel overwhelmed and not good enough,” Mauboy explains, nodding to the adage: you can’t be what you can’t see.

So in 2023, the next generation of Aboriginal leaders are growing up seeing Mauboy on prime-time TV, performing on stage at Treaty Day Out, fronting major beauty brand campaigns and strutting the Indigenous Fashion Projects Runway at Australian Fashion Week. And that was just in the last few months. Since her debut single – ‘Running Back’ with American rapper Flo Rida – went double platinum in 2008, Mauboy has starred in hit films The Sapphires and Bran Nue Dae and the drama series The Secret Daughter, she has sold more than two million albums, represented Australia at the Eurovision song contest and taken home two ARIA Music Awards amid 30 nominations. Having signed with Warner Music after leaving her long-time record label Sony in 2020, Mauboy is working on new music for an upcoming album, which will be her first in more than four years.

“[Representation] matters. It goes a long way,” says Mauboy. Picture: Bec Parsons

If Mauboy feels like she is running, it’s because of the strong First Nations women who have walked before her. As well as looking up to Freeman on the cover of that magazine, Mauboy says she “wanted to be Deborah Mailman,” and longed to “wear Christine Anu’s deadly outfits”. As she admits, “I used to sneak into my sister’s room and steal her hair iron so I could curl my hair to look like Christine Anu. [Representation] matters. It goes a long way.”

In an industry that has been criticised for being overwhelmingly pale, stale and male, Mauboy has held her own. From her seat at the table, she says she’s seen a shift; things are finally moving. “There have been changes, major changes, good changes. We are seeing and hearing different stories [today],” says Mauboy. “We have come a long way, but there’s still a lot more that needs to be done.”

Being seen is one thing, but being heard is another. For Mauboy, being on The Voice Australia this year is especially poignant as Australia approaches the referendum on the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice to Parliament. “When I think about a voice in parliament, I personally think of many voices. We need to hear from many First Nations mob and people who have experience of living in communities. We need to hear from those who will be directly affected by the result of the vote,” Mauboy tells Stellar, adding that she’d like to see a detailed plan from our leaders about how the Voice will work in reality and what it will mean for mob on Country. “If you’re not living in these places and in these circumstances, you can’t experience the harshness firsthand.”

“We need to hear from those who will be directly affected by the result of the vote,” Mauboy tells Stellar. Picture: Bec Parsons

Mauboy has seen that harshness up close, both in Darwin and across the Northern Territory. “As a community, there’s a lot that has happened: violence, alcohol abuse and intergenerational trauma. A lot of healing needs to be done. As young siblings growing up and seeing that, we wanted to become leaders for our young mob and to show them that it is possible [to break the cycle].”

Mauboy works hard to do just that. She is a proud ambassador for the Darwin Aboriginal Art Fair and the Indigenous Literacy Foundation (ILF), a community-led charity promoting and championing storytelling. In remote communities, children don’t have easy access to libraries, and many speak English as a second or third language. There are more than 250 Indigenous languages, including around 800 dialects in Australia. At primary and high school, Mauboy was taught local languages instead of French or German.

“I had the luxury of growing up in the NT and having a close connection to culture. When I moved to Sydney, I realised Indigenous languages weren’t being taught in the curriculum down south. It was different,” Mauboy explains of her work with the ILF. “For kids to be able to read and write in their language, to share their stories with the world and to see themselves in books is pretty amazing.”

With her work on the screen, in the music studio and in communities, Mauboy has seen those wishes she made on Casuarina Beach come true.

Now happily married to her long-time partner Themeli ‘Magoo’ Magripilis and the proud mother to a spoodle named Leo, she makes her home in Sydney – but she returns to Darwin frequently, and still makes her way to Dripstone Cliffs to admire the city’s epic sunsets.

On the day of Mauboy’s Stellar cover shoot, the sky was a moody grey. As the daylight faded and the photographer began to wrap things up, the clouds parted. “All of a sudden, the sun came out and the sky was a dusty orangey-pink with streaks of lilac for the last shot of the day,” Mauboy explains. “It took our breath away.” And as she looked to the horizon, Mauboy whispered a new mantra to the ocean, a wish that her community will see a future as bright as hers ended up being. “We all want the best for everyone,” she says. “We all want to live in unity, and [for Aboriginal people] to have a say and have a voice.”

The Voice Australia season 12 premieres at 7pm on August 6 on the Seven Network and 7plus.

Originally published as Jessica Mauboy: ‘A lot of healing needs to be done’