A critically acclaimed Australian musician who grew up in Dubbo took out two top gongs at the National Indigenous Music Awards in Darwin on Saturday.
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Mojo Juju - also known as Mojo Ruiz de Luzuriaga - won the Album of the Year and Song of the Year awards for her defiant epic 'Native Tongue' and its title-track which tells the story of loss, anger and yearning for connection to traditional culture and language.
The latest wins come after Juju's Native Tongue music video took out the 2018J Award for Australian Music Video of the Year and she received three ARIA award nominations.
Native Tongue is Juju's third studio album.
Juju, a Filipino and Wiradjuri queer woman, told Australian Community Media the album was her story of feeling like an outsider and learning to take ownership of her identity.
"I was always an outsider and it was definitely a difficult time growing up in the '90s in Dubbo when I was the only queer person I knew at school, and openly so at the time," she said.
"There was a lot of racial tensions and I definitely felt like a minority.
"I didn't come back for a really long time or if I did I played it very low-key and just came to visit family and now I feel like Dubbo has changed a lot.
"I can see the change and I think maybe I've also changed and grown and I feel like that's a really positive thing."