Visiting Nashville: Jon Muq talks about the album “Flying Away”, Uganda
Ugandan-born singer-songwriter Jon Muq’s Easy Eye Sound release “Flying Away” celebrates his humble path to indie pop fame.
The work of Ugandan-born, Austin-based artist Jon Muq is proof that being humble about your talents is the best way to advance a career.
He can best be described as a quiet sitter and thinker whose strengths as a singer-songwriter come from the fact that he always finds it novel to not let grass grow beneath his feet.
That’s what makes the soulful intonations of his debut album, Easy Eye Sound’s Flying Away, so special. He’s an artist who serves his audience and his instruments – in that order.
“I will always do what I love”
He has lived in the mountainous rural suburbs of eastern Kampala, Uganda, since he was 11, and has moved constantly—four times in ten years between middle school and college.
After graduating with a degree in industrial arts and design, he first played guitar and belted out songs in a hotel lobby, then on a Norwegian Cruise Line ship, where he sang six days a week while traveling between Florida, the Bahamas, and South America. Although he won an award there, he eventually settled in Austin, where he worked with charitable programs that provide aid and support to people in need.
“I write about happiness, joy and love because they are universal and evoke different feelings than the ones I grew up with,” says Muq, sitting backstage at Nashville’s Basement East before opening for the Secret Sisters.
He looks back on a long tradition that includes singing along to the radio at an outdoor swimming pool — after his family’s landlord turned off the power to save electricity — and absentmindedly singing in a soprano octave while playing the Shaker drum in his boarding school’s choir four years later.
“I never knew how well I could sing, but people always appreciated my voice,” says Muq.
“Whether I’m singing on Facebook, for young homeless people, or on a ship, I have, am doing, and will always do what I love.”
‘Fly away’
He describes his latest collection of tunes, which includes “Flying Away From Home,” as songs that help change a person’s daily emotional state, if only for a moment.
It is an upbeat pop song with bright vocals, similar to two of the top 5 songs on the Billboard Hot 100 chart of 2006: “You’re Beautiful” by James Blunt and “Bad Day” by Daniel Powter.
He sings autobiographically: “I always dreamed of leaving / Somewhere where I might be able to fly / So at 23 I left home / And sailed away into the night.”
Timelessly bold and optimistic pop has been part of Muq’s creative lineage since he discovered a CD copy of the 1984 release “We Are the World” by the collective USA for Africa as a teenager.
Hearing the song’s diverse mix of 80’s pop stars working in harmony sparked a “passion” for music in Muq’s heart, which, along with being a member of his boarding school choir, gave him the confidence to sing and write songs with a wide range of thematic objectives.
To this end, “Shake Shake” is inspired by party-friendly dance steps familiar to Kampala’s 50 unique tribes living in five different regions of the region.
“I was inspired by the fact that some tribes are known to shake their shoulders, others their heads and many their feet, so I wrote ‘Darling won’t you dance with me, shake, shake what you’ve got’ – when people can dance, they’re happy all night long,” says Muq. “Writing a song that makes anyone, anywhere, someone who can hear a command and take it from their heart to the dance floor felt good.”
A “stunning” opportunity
The collaboration with Black Keys frontman and Easy Eye Records co-founder Dan Auerbach for his release almost didn’t happen.
Muq, on the other hand, modestly considers his talent as an expression of his new appreciation that his fans are impressed by his vocal abilities.
When Auerbach contacted him via Facebook, Muq was initially stunned.
However, his friends in Austin couldn’t believe that Muq didn’t know about it and told him that this was a “mind-blowing” opportunity worth taking.
Auerbach’s ability to surround Muq with musicians and opportunities enhanced his skills as a singer-songwriter, meaning the album required roughly one take per track.
“The chemistry required forces the artists to speak an authentic musical language,” adds the artist.
This language creates a connection between blues, folk and R&B and serves as the driving force of the release. Whether the result is Afropop or contemporary American pop, it is characterized by a distinctive sound.
“These songs connect with me in a way that is comforting to me as an artist, to the musicians in the studio, and to the people who hear me live,” says Muq. “Given the hardships of my life’s journey, I’m grateful to receive this comfort from all the people in my life.”
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