Jessica Mauboy, Australian singer-songwriter
Jessica Hilda Mauboy (born 4 August 1989) is an Australian singer. Born and raised in Darwin, Northern Territory, she rose to fame in 2006 on the fourth season of Australian Idol, where she was runner-up and subsequently signed a recording contract with Sony Music Australia. After releasing a live album of her Idol performances and briefly being a member of the girl group Young Divas in 2007, Mauboy released her debut studio album, Been Waiting, the following year. It included her first number-one single, "Burn", and became the second highest-selling Australian album of 2009, certified double platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA).
Her second studio album, Get 'Em Girls (2010), showcased a harder-edged R&B sound, and produced four platinum singles. Her third studio album, Beautiful (2013), a mixture of dance-oriented tracks, R&B and pop, included the top-ten hits "Pop a Bottle (Fill Me Up)", "Never Be the Same" and "Can I Get a Moment?".
Aside from her music career, Mauboy has ventured into acting, with starring roles in the films Bran Nue Dae (2010), and The Sapphires (2012), which earned her the AACTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role. She returned to acting in 2016 in the lead role in the television drama series The Secret Daughter for two seasons. It was her first major TV role and was written especially for her. She released two soundtrack albums from the show, the first of which made her the first Indigenous artist with a number-one album on the ARIA Albums Chart. Her fourth studio album, Hilda (October 2019), debuted at number one.
Mauboy is one of Australia's most successful female artists. She has achieved six top-ten albums (including two number-ones) and 16 top-twenty singles (including 9 top-ten hits). She has won two ARIA Music Awards from 25 nominations, and was ranked sixteenth on the Herald Sun's list of the "100 Greatest Australian Singers of All Time". She has collaborated with international artists such as Flo Rida, Snoop Dogg, Ludacris, Jay Sean, and Pitbull. She has also toured with Beyoncé and Chris Brown, and performed at many notable events, including the Australian visits for Oprah Winfrey, Ellen DeGeneres, and US President Barack Obama. She was a guest performer at the second semifinal of the Eurovision Song Contest in 2014. She competed for Australia at the 2018 Eurovision Song Contest and reached 20th place.