Advertisement

Mauboy is J-OK

Jessica Mauboy is shaping up to be Australia's answer to Beyonce Knowles. Not only does the Darwin-raised pop princess have a pitch-perfect voice with bootylicious curves to match, just like Knowles, she too has an alter ego.

"My alter ego is J Malley - it's sort of like Beyonce's Sasha Fierce," she told Access All Areas at the 92.9 studios in Subiaco following an intimate performance with competition winners. "It's the fearless side of me... I got it tattooed on the back of my neck."

The 21-year-old starlet even joined Knowles - who she has worshiped since she was 11 - on her I Am... tour of Australia in 2009. But Mauboy's big-name collaborations don't end there.

Since coming second to Damien Leith in the 2006 season of Australian Idol, she has gone on to work with the likes of Ludacris, Snoop Dogg and Sean Paul. Later this year she will support Chris Brown on the Australian leg of his F.A.M.E tour.

There have been worries over whether Brown's tour, which is due at Burswood Dome on May 3, will go ahead after poor ticket sales. But Mauboy said: "It's definitely happening - I'm doing a whole set with a full band."

Mauboy spent six days in Perth last week for a host of gigs, including performing I Am Woman for International Women's Day celebrations at Perth Convention and Exhibition Centre and hosting a breakfast with staff from Burswood Entertainment Complex's Aboriginal Employment Program.

"I'm part Aboriginal and part Indonesian. I think to be able to be seen as a role model, it's an amazing thing, to take that power and use it for good things," she said.

To top it all off, last Friday she celebrated the release of the third single, What Happened To Us, from her gold-selling second album Get Em Girls.

While Mauboy says she is enjoying the jet-setting lifestyle, which last year included a trip to Los Angeles to work with Snoop Doog, she said it's hard to leave behind her family and boyfriend of three years, Themeli Magripilis, in Darwin.

"I think being in the music industry, you have that fear of, 'will you ever meet that one person'," she said. "But he's totally understanding that, with my work, I need to be in a different city every week."

And there's no sign of the travel easing off, as Mauboy will "definitely" be heading back overseas in the near future. "It's just a matter of when," she said.