From hip hop singer to politician: Jacinta Price’s hidden talent revealed
Footage has surfaced online of Liberal Party Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price performing under the stage name “Sassy J”.
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Before she used her voice in the Northern Territory’s senate, Jacinta Nampijinpa Price showcased her vocal talents on stage as a hip hop singer under the stage name “Sassy J”.
Footage of Ms Price’s hidden talent has surfaced online, showing the shadow minister for Indigenous Australians and Country Liberal Party senator singing with her group, Catch The Fly.
In the video, Ms Price performs with two other members of the group at a concert in Alice Springs to raise funds for victims of the Queensland 2011 floods, which left thousands without homes.
Ms Price, a leading No vote campaigner for the Indigenous Voice to Parliament, told The Daily Telegraph music and art were important parts of her childhood having grown up in a family that shares a strong “creative impulse”.
“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,” she said.
The senator first started performing in primary school as a member of the choir, going on to compete in inter-school eisteddfod competitions.
“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 hop instead,” she said.
From 15, she began performing hip hop with a group of cousins and school friends who went by the name Flava 4.
“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,” she said.
Flava 4 later evolved into Catch the Fly, which saw Ms Price perform under the stage name Sassy J.
After enjoying a hip hop career, she launched her own solo album Dry River in 2013,
a mix of folk, soul and country music.
The album, which features the now-senator rocking a mohawk on its cover, was created as a tribute to Ms Price’s life growing up in Central Australia.
According to Triple J Unearthed, Ms Price’s personal sound, described as a mix of Blues, Soul, Roots and Folk, “has been compared to that of artist Tracy Chapman”.
Ms Price previously opened up about her musical past in a post on Facebook last year after spending time with music rights management organisation, APRA AMCOS, in parliament.
“As a former singer-song writer and hip hop artist myself I can attest to the challenges. As the wife of a recording artist I continue to share in the challenges,” she wrote in the post.
“Music is for us all and I will always support initiatives that enrich our national identity and the creative well being of us all.”
The senator recently expressed her concerns about the Voice to Parliament on Ben Fordham’s 2GB breakfast program this week.
“So far, none of the proponents of the Voice have prioritised the needs of vulnerable Indigenous women and children in remote communities, not one of them have – they’ve talked about reparations, they’ve talked about abolishing Australia Day, they’ve talked about constructing treaties,” she said.
“But (there’s) nothing of any substance that is going to improve the lives of the most marginalised.”
Originally published as From hip hop singer to politician: Jacinta Price’s hidden talent revealed