Jon Muq's "Shake Shake Dance for Me" – A nostalgic Afrobeat gem with vocal firepower

Music Review:  Shake Shake Dance for Me – Jon Muq

Ugandan bon singer-song writer-guitarist Jon Muq, now based in Texas, has a new single, a revved - up ditty called Shake Shake Dance for Me.

It’s been a while since we heard any material from Jon Muq, who started out playing gigs in Kampala using a make-shift guitar he strung together on an old guitar frame.

His restaurant performances caught the eye and ear of someone who had a bit of leverage on a cruise ship, who proposed hooking Jon up with a gig on the cruise ship. The rest, as they say, is history.

He started a music career in the United States, under new management and has done the grunt work. He is now a performing and recording artiste, and is a partner in a record label called Shake It Africa that he helped establish, along with Kevin Wommack, his manager. The label takes an afro-centric approach to how it signs up artistes, picking up acts from East, West and Southern Africa.

Shake Shake Dance for Me is Jon’s first single under the label, a creative reimagining of Shake Shake, a song he released about 2 yeas ago. This reimagining is produced by Grammy-winning producer Derek Dixie, whose credits include Beyoncé, Chloe x Halle, and The Carters. It was executed with a view to adding an afrobeat feel for Jon Muq under the new label. The reimagining was also necessary because the song was being released under a new label.  

The production style is innovative, combining modern afrobeat elements with semi acoustic guitar riffs, mute guitar and synth sounds on keys for a heady organic sound that is rich with percussion as Dixie goes all out to underline the afrobeat element. It helps of course, that the original material they are working with has a wonderful melody.

Dereck Dixie is the kind of producer that demands carte blanch on something he is working on, and he tends to get it. He goes all in on Shake Shake Dance for Me, creating a musical bed that you might refer to as ‘enthused’. But the mixdown is skilled, and leaves room for Jon’s vocals. An instrumental bed against which Jon works the melody of the song, which is important because Shake Shake Dance for Me underlines one thing: the man has some pipes on him. He sings melodiously, and with power. His syntax is also near flawless.

The hook for Shake Shake Dance for Me is poignantly melodic, and even the sophisticated, driving pecusion can’t hide this; it has a plaintive feel that seems to have disappeared from the music industry. Loved the fact that the song’s arrangement has a throwback element to it as well – verse, bridge, chorus. I have missed this sort of thing, and Jon Muq uses these elements seamlessly.

It gives the song a modern and simultaneously nostalgic feel – this is the sort of song that would fit comfortably on a dancefloor playlist in Cape Town, in Nairobi, Kampala, in Kingston, in London or in Amsterdam. There’s a world music feel to Shake Shake Dance for Me. And it isn’t accidental.

Shake Shake Dance for Me is a mind-blowing sign of good things to come from Jon and the record label, Shake It Africa