Singer Jon Muq traveled from Uganda to Texas to become a rising star
Sitting on stage at McGonigel’s Mucky Duck, Jon Muq looked like hundreds of other songwriters who traveled to the little listening room from Austin: a guy in a hat with a guitar, albeit a guitar customized with two cartoon-eye decals.
Then he started singing. At that point, the effect was different. The last time I recall a voice moving me this way on first listen was Tracy Chapman’s 35 years ago. Muq’s voice is the one thing more arresting than his story, which is pretty incredible, too.
I can’t recall the last time a voice unadorned had the effect Muq’s voice did on me. His lower register has a distinctive touch of grit. He can also go high, the effect something like reaching up and plucking stars. His singing projects a natural quality but boasts complicated little turns and inflections.
Muq is back at the Duck on Thursday, but the opportunity to see him in such a small space may be fast disappearing. Muq has had an eventful year. He opened for Billy Joel and Norah Jones on a cruise ship. And he caught the ear of the Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach, who has been working with Muq on a proper debut album to be released next year on Auerbach’s Easy Eye Sound label. A single, “Runaway,” was just released. It suggests great things to come.
Muq’s Austin story differs from so many other musicians in that his begins in Kampala, the capital city of Uganda. His between-song banter is dotted with culture-shock stories, like his first experience with a mitar crowave oven. Muq put a precooked chicken in the machine for 40 minutes.
He grew up in Uganda without much exposure to music. The family had a battery-powered radio that didn’t pick up many stations. At 7, Muq picked up the bugle. He was enamored with the sound of the school choir.
He was working odd jobs with a cousin in Kampala when he found a CD that included the ’80s single “We Are the World.” Muq began learning English by singing, listening to American singers and mimicking their vocal mannerisms and tics.
Muq hadn’t even seen a guitar until he was 19, when he happened upon somebody playing one outside their home in Mutungo, a Ugandan village. At that point, he knew what he wanted to do.
Back in Kampala, Muq would walk the streets singing with a friend shooting videos and posting them, which led to Muq being hired by a Norwegian cruise line. In 2017, he started a nightly singing gig on a cruise liner that traveled from Florida to the Bahamas and South America.
Muq had friends in Austin. So he sunk roots there. He has since drawn increasing attention for making music with just voice and guitar. Muq’s songs recall Johnny Nash’s “I Can See Clearly Now” in that they acknowledge difficult times while still radiating hope.
“These days the world is sad,” he says in a profile on his label’s website. “So I wanted to make happy songs. I wanted to write songs that connected.”