Jessica Mauboy (born August 4, 1989, Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia) is an Australian rhythm-and-blues and pop-music singer-songwriter and actress whose 2016 album The Secret Daughter (Songs from the Original TV Series) was the first by an Indigenous Australian to debut in the number-one spot on the ARIA (Australian Recording Industry Association) Charts. She first became widely known in 2006, when she competed on Australian Idol.
Mauboy’s father is an electrician of Timorese-Indonesian descent, and her mother is an Australian Aboriginal person with roots in the Wakaman and KuKu Yalanji tribes. When Mauboy was 14 years old, she won a talent search contest and acquired a contract with Sony BMG. The single she produced, a country rendition of Cyndi Lauper’s hit song “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun,” did not find an audience. Her contract then expired. Nevertheless, she continued to pursue musical endeavours.
Mauboy made her breakthrough when she appeared on the fourth season of Australian Idol, a reality television singing competition. The judges were impressed with her voice, particularly during her audition, in which she sang Whitney Houston’s ballad “I Have Nothing.” She made it to the show’s finals, despite experiencing a sore throat during the competition. Mauboy finished as a runner-up, which surprised the many people who expected her to win. About a month after the show finished, she secured another recording contract with Sony BMG. Then, in early 2007, Mauboy released The Journey, an album of her live Idol performances. It included a cover of Christina Aguilera’s ballad “Beautiful” and peaked at number four on the ARIA Charts. Later that year she joined the Young Divas, a group of former Idol contestants who sang cover songs. The Young Divas released the album New Attitude in November 2007. Mauboy left the group in mid-2008 to focus on a solo career.
In late 2008 Mauboy released Been Waiting, her first solo studio album. It included several successful singles such as “Running Back,” which features rap artist Flo Rida, and “Burn,” her first song to reach number one in Australia. In 2009 Mauboy performed as a supporting act on the Australian leg of Beyoncé’s I Am… world tour. In 2010 Mauboy released the album Get ’Em Girls, featuring pop, R&B, and dance music tracks. The album, which included songs featuring Ludacris and Snoop Dogg, sold well. Get ’Em Girls peaked at number six on the ARIA Charts, and four of the album’s singles achieved platinum status. Beautiful (2013) offered more dance, pop, and R&B music, and it reached the top three on the ARIA Charts. In 2014 Mauboy performed at the Eurovision Song Contest, becoming the first solo artist of non-European descent to be a guest performer for Australia. Four years later she again represented Australia in the Eurovision Song Contest, with “We Got Love,” a song about the power of love, inclusivity, and acceptance.
Besides singing, Mauboy has also acted. She costarred in the musical Bran Nue Dae (2009), and in The Sapphires (2012) she played Julie, one of four Australian Aboriginal young women who form a musical group and perform for American troops during the Vietnam War. The film was based on the true story of an all-female Australian band of the same name. Mauboy won best supporting actress awards from the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts and the Australian Film Critics Association for her performance. In 2014–15 Mauboy was a guest on multiple episodes of the television talk show The Laundry. She then starred in the television drama series The Secret Daughter (2016–17), and she released a soundtrack album that included her versions of several cover songs as well as some original songs used in the series. The Secret Daughter became the number-one album on the ARIA Charts. In 2017 she helped create the album The Secret Daughter: Season 2, which peaked at number two on the ARIA Charts. Hilda, Mauboy’s fourth studio album, debuted at number one on the ARIA Charts in 2019. In 2021 Mauboy became a coach on Australia’s version of The Voice, a reality television singing competition.
In addition to singing and acting, she has engaged in philanthropic efforts to support Aboriginal peoples and Torres Strait Islander peoples. In 2015 she became an ambassador of the Indigenous Literacy Foundation, an organization that seeks to increase Indigenous people’s access to learning materials in Australia, particularly among communities in rural and remote areas.