Maia Christine Anu (born March 15, 1970) is an Australian singer, songwriter, actress and broadcaster of Torres Strait Islander heritage. Born in Cairns, Queensland, she developed an early connection to music and performance through her family and her community. Although she became widely known as a pop singer, her career has also encompassed dance, musical theater, film, television and children's entertainment.
Anu initially trained and worked as a dancer. She studied at the National Aboriginal and Islander Skills Development Association in Sydney and later performed with both the Aboriginal Islander Dance Theatre and Bangarra Dance Theatre. This background remained important to her artistic identity, giving her work a strong physical sense of rhythm and a connection to Indigenous performance traditions.
Her transition into recorded music began with backing vocals for Neil Murray's group the Rainmakers. In 1993, she released "Last Train," a dance-oriented reworking of a Paul Kelly song, followed by "Monkey and the Turtle," which drew on a traditional Torres Strait Islander nursery rhyme. Her breakthrough came in 1995 with her recording of "My Island Home," written by Murray for the Warumpi Band. Anu's version transformed the song into a major Australian pop hit and established it as her signature recording. It also became an important expression of Islander identity in the Australian mainstream.
The song appeared on Anu's debut album, Stylin' Up, released in 1995. The album achieved platinum status and earned her major industry recognition, including an ARIA Award for Best Indigenous Release. At the 1996 ARIA Awards, Anu also won Best Female Artist. Her early success helped bring Indigenous perspectives and musical influences to a broad national audience without separating them from contemporary pop production.
Anu followed Stylin' Up with Come My Way in 2000. The album reached number 18 on the Australian chart and was certified gold. Its best-known single, "Sunshine on a Rainy Day," brought further acclaim and won Anu ARIA Awards for Best Female Artist and Engineer of the Year. She also performed "My Island Home" during the closing ceremony of the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games, one of the most prominent public presentations of the song.
Her later recordings explored several directions, including the pop and soul-influenced 45 Degrees (2003), the acoustic album Acoustically (2005), the children's project Chrissy's Island Family (2007), and Rewind: The Aretha Franklin Songbook (2012). She also released the culturally themed Christmas album Island Christmas in 2014 and revisited her breakthrough material on ReStylin' Up 20 Years in 2015.
Acting became another substantial part of Anu's career. She appeared in the films Dating the Enemy, Moulin Rouge!, and The Matrix Reloaded, and played Kali in the related video game Enter the Matrix. On stage, she received strong notices for playing Mimi in the original Australian production of Rent, following an appearance in Little Shop of Horrors. She has also hosted Play School and worked in television and radio.
In 2024, Anu released Waku: Minaral a Minalay, an album inspired in part by archival recordings of her maternal grandfather, a Saibai songman. The project linked contemporary songwriting and production with family history and Torres Strait cultural memory, extending the themes that have defined her work since "My Island Home."