There’s a phrase everyone knows: guilty by association. It usually has negative connotations. Not in this case. I was asked if I wanted to see Jon Muq. He was going to be playing Rams Head on Stage in Annapolis. I had no idea who Jon Muq was. So I checked out the show. Turns out, he was opening for Valerie June. So my answer to “do you want to see Jon Muq” was an emphatic “F*** YES”!
The first song I heard was his latest single, “Runaway.”
Watch the official music video for “Runaway” by Jon Muq on YouTube:
One of the things that makes Jon’s music so accessible is his backstory. He’s from Austin, Texas, via Uganda and there’s just as much Western music as African in his songs. They speak of his struggles and his triumphs, his love advice to friends, and his honest feelings about leaving Uganda for the United States.
On April 18, Jon arrived on stage to a very accepting crowd. As with most openers, you never know who in the crowd is familiar with him. And in a venue like Rams Head on Stage, it can be tough for an opener to keep the audience’s attention with servers taking orders, conversations at tables, photographers roaming around. Jon walked on stage unassumingly and introduced himself.
Throughout his set, he told stories about his life and how they connected with the song he was about to play, like the time he sold someone in his village a chicken but the next day, the chicken came back. So Jon kept selling the chicken to different people. Until he ate it.
One time, Jon said, his friend had an unexpected ending to a relationship. He asked Jon to write him a song to help him win back his former girlfriend. Jon wrote a song and used spicy words. It worked! He went on to say that he was going to play us that song but he took out the spicy words. We’ll just have to imagine them.
Jon’s songs are more sincere than Linus’ pumpkin patch. His stories paint a picture of a young man falling in love with music and wanting to share that with anyone who will listen. That’s what makes him stand out, enough so that Dan Auerbach from The Black Keys reached out to Jon to work with him on his album.
My favorite story was one he told about getting his first gig outside of Africa. He and his friend had been posting videos of his songs online. One day he gets an email from Carnival Cruise line. They are offering him a job. He saw the photo of the cruise ship in the email and showed it to his friend. He told Jon it was photoshopped. No ship could be that big. So Jon ignored the email. Several weeks pass and he gets another email. Carnival asks again if he’d like a job singing his songs on the boat. So Jon asks if they could send him a video of the ship to verify its real. After seeing the video, he calls the entertainment director back and asks if he can still have the job. She replied, “F*** YES”!
Jon’s set was solo. He was on stage in a foreign country, with just a guitar, singing songs he wrote about friends in Uganda to people in Annapolis, Maryland. And if you were there, you could tell that wasn’t lost on him. Every song sounds honest with a unique perspective. By the time he left the stage, I felt like I had made a new friend. When he’s playing in the area, go see and support him because I selfishly want him to continue making music.
Setlist
- Always as One
- Flying Away From Home
- Dark Door
- Runaway
- Love Love Love
- Bend
- Hello Sunshine
Here are some more photos of Jon Muq performing live at Rams Head on Stage on April 18, 2025. All pictures copyright and courtesy of Marc Shea.
[…] On April 18, the show opened with a beautiful set from Ugandan singer/songwriter Jon Muq. I was a beautiful set filled with as many stories as songs. You can read the review of it here, in an earlier Parklife DC post. […]