Being who i am is intrinsically political.
And, up until now, I'd always thought that maybe it was enough...
to be visible.
But I think I need to be more than visible, I need to be vocal.
Mojo Juju is a genre-bending musician.
As a frontwoman and then solo artist, she's released four albums.
But her fourthcomng album delving into her Filipino and Wiradjuri roots
is already making big waves around Australia.
I hoped that maybe there were other people out there that had had similar experiences to me
that might connect to it.
But the reaction to the clip and the song has been...
unexpected.
And unprecedented as far as anything I've done before.
What did you know about your culture as a kid?
I grew up very connected to my Filipino identity.
I knew a lot about my dad's family.
I knew when I was a kid that my mum's grandfather was Wiradjuri.
And not a lot else.
Pearl, my great-grandmother, and Jackson, my great-grandfather
were high school sweethearts, or young lovers.
She was not Indigenous. They weren't allowed to be together.
And she had this secret lover affair with Jackson.
My grandmother was the product of that affair.
She was denied a relationship with the man who was actually her father.
He was always around. He would always be there to look after her.
And it was actually on my great-grandmother's deathbed that my grandmother asked her one last time
"Is Jackson my father?"
And she said, "Some things you tell, and some things you don't."
My grandmother got the call from Jackson's family
And they said, "No, actually, Jackson's your dad."
And confirmed that for her.
She has - still to this day - a great deal of regret.
And, you know, a certain level of resentment.
When did you know that that story was going to be the heart of this album?
Very early on.
I wanted to look at this story...
from as many different perspectives as I could
to try and have greater insight into 'Why?'
You moved around a lot as a kid. Did that make music more important to you, do you think?
I think so.
I was often the new kind in town.
But I was also a minority in many other ways.
Was there a first time that you realised what it meant to be 'other' as a kid?
Probably as a five or six-year-old in the playground and the kids, sort of, taunting me.
If you were Asian, people just assumed that you were Chinese.
I would get Chinese slurs, and things.
But I remember going home to my grandmother
and being quite distressed about it, and she pulled out the
what is it... the World Britannica Encyclopedia?
And we looked up 'China' and we went through and she showed me pictures and we talked about it.
And she was like, 'Chinese people are beautiful.'
That's nothing to be ashamed of. That has stayed wth me always.
If you were a kid and people asked you about your background, what would you say to them?
That I was Filipino.
Growing up I never felt that I was Australian
because the narrative that you're fed is 'The Australian identify is white.'
Someone from the music media said to me
'I really like what you do, but I'm surprised you've been so successful.'
And when I asked him, 'Why?' He said...
'Because you're really confronting.'
And I was like, 'How so?'
And he said, 'Because you're a queer woman of colour and that's really challenging for a lot of people.'
It took someone to say that so blatantly, to be so forthright
for me to realise there are certain doors closed to me,
that there are certain opportunities that might not be available to me
because people are challenged or threatened or confronted by who I am.
And I guess, being who I am is intrinsically political.
And, up until now, I'd always thought that maybe it was enough to be visible.
But I think I need to be more than visible, I need to be vocal.
On the album, there are a few spoken word tracks and one of them is your grandma.
Why was it important to have her voice actually heard on the album?
I wanted to tell that story whist they're still here.
Old traditions are really important and family histories give you insight into your own identity.
And songwriting is a huge part of keeping those oral traditions alive.
So I need to do this and I need to do it now -
while I still have access to these stories firsthand.
Having experienced a lifetime of being 'other-ised'
I have things to say that I think are valid.
And maybe some of those things are important.
What have I got to lose, really?
And, so far, it's worked out alright.
Mojo, thank you so much for joining us.
Thank you.