Mojo Ruiz de Luzuriaga, known professionally as Mo'Ju and previously as Mojo Juju, is an ARIA Award-nominated Australian musician, best-known for her 2018 album Native Tongue and the lead single of the same title. The single won the Best Independent Single category in the. She plays guitar and piano, writes songs and sings, and has created music in a number of genres. Mo'Ju has toured with international performers and her music has been featured in a number of television shows. Her identity is a matter of pride and she spoken publicly and through her music about being Wiradjuri, Filipino and queer.
Early life
Mojo Ruiz de Luzuriaga was born in regional New South Wales. Her Father is Filipino, from Bacolod City, Negros and her Mother is mixed race, of Wiradjuri and European heritage. Her family moved around the region when she was a young child due to her Father's work, but her grandparents lived in Dubbo where she attended high school. She has spoken openly about feeling like an outsider through her childhood and how this laid the grounds for her exploration of cultural identity in her work. Her father, speaks but did not teach her Spanish, Ilonggo or Tagalog language. Mojo grew up around music with a number of musicians in her Mother's family. She had a few piano lessons before starting to play the guitar aged eight. In a 2019 interview with SBS TV's The Feed Mo'ju said: "Traditions are really important and family histories give you an insight into your own identity. Songwriting is a huge part of keeping those oral traditions alive."
Career
Mo'ju has toured with international performers Tony Joe White, Rufus Wainwright, Aloe Blacc and Australian artists including Hilltop Hoods, Paul Kelly and Kira Puru. Mo'ju has performed live shows with artists such as Hiatus Kaiyote, Ella Hooper, Kaiit, Sampa The Great and Emma Donovan. Her music has been featured in a number of television shows including ', ,Roadtrip Nation and Total Control. Mo'ju was interviewed in the documentary film Her Sound, Her Story, along with a large number of high profile women in the Australian music industry. 2006–2010: Mojo Juju & The Snake Oil Merchants' In 2006-2010, Mojo fronted a band called Mojo Juju & The Snake Oil Merchants. The band released two independent albums, Mojo Juju & The Snake Oil Merchants and Sellin' You Salvation before splitting. A compilation of earlier material, Mojo Juju & The Snake Oil Merchants – Anthology, was released in 2015 on European label Off-Label Records. to coincide with the release of German film :de:Bestefreunde|Bestefreunde'', whose soundtrack was composed entirely of songs from the band's back catalogue.
2012–2015: Going solo
In January 2012, Ruiz de Luzuriaga released her eponymous debut solo album on ABC Music. It featured the singles "Horse Named Regret" and "Must Be Desire", and was in a blues style, featuring a lot of guitar. In April 2015, she released her second solo studio albumSeeing Red/Feeling Blue, an album with more pop elements than the first, but touching on a range of genres. She used the piano to write it, and, wanting to develop a new sound, collaborated with her friend Ptero Stylus, who had been working with hip hop duo Diafrix, as well as musicians from soul acts the Putbacks and the Cactus Channel. It features the singles "A Heart Is Not a Yo-Yo" and "They Come and They Go". On 30 May 2015 Juju performed at Vivid Live with the Melbourne Ska Orchestra at the Sydney Opera House.
2018: ''Native Tongue''
In August 2018, Mo'ju's third studio album Native Tongue was released, after four years in the making. The album explored her family history, identity and race politics. She has spoken of the highly personal nature of the album and the single, saying they were about “allowing yourself to own all those different parts of who you are”. Responding to criticism by right-wing commentator Andrew Bolt, who described the title track of the album as a complaint, Mo'ju said that it was in fact an “expression of some complex emotions, such as grief for a loss of culture and Indigenous languages and other impacts of assimilation, colonisation and the white-washing of non-western cultures. This is not a song of self-pity, ...a song of self-empowerment”. The Pasefika Vitoria Choir feature on the title track, which is produced by Malaysian-Australian hip hop artistJoelistics; other artists on the album include Lay the Mystic, Mirrah, and Joshua Tavares. Mo'ju's brother, Steve "T-Bone" Ruiz de Luzuriaga, and Melbourne-based producer and musician Yeo, were the backing musicians on the track. Mo'ju has said that performing this new material has "reignited her passion and purpose for music", but has also spoken out about the way women of colour and other diverse artists have been subject to tokenism in the industry. 2019 Chicago Tribune listed Mo'ju as one of the top 12 acts to showcase at SXSW in 2019. In May of 2019 Mo'ju appeared as a featured artist on the single "Black Child" by In June 2019 Mo'ju joined A.B. Original as a guest vocalist for their live performance on the SummerStage in Central Park in New York.
Discography
Albums
Singles
As lead artist
Reception and awards
In 2015, Seeing Red/Feeling Blue was nominated for Best Soul, Funk, R’n’B and Gospel Album in The Age Music Genre Victoria Awards. In 2018, Juju won the Live R&B or Soul Artist of the Year category in the National Live Music Awards. Native Tongue became Mojo Juju's first charting album, peaking at number 76 on the ARIA Charts. The music video for "Native Tongue", directed by Claudia Sangiorgi and featuring the Djuki Mala dancers from Elcho Island, won the 2018 J Award for Australian Music Video of the Year. At the National Dreamtime Awards 2018 Mojo Juju was named Female Artist of the Year. At the 2019, "Native Tongue" won Best Independent Single. At the National Indigenous Music Awards 2019, Native Tongue won Album of the Year and "Native Tongue" won Song of the Year. In October 2019, she came at no.7 in Happy Mag's list of "The 15 Australian female artists changing the game right now". In October 2019 Juju was once again nominated in the National Live Music Awards, for both the Live R&B Or Soul Act Of The Year and Live Act of the Year as well as Live Act of the Year.
The National Indigenous Music Awards is an annual awards ceremony that recognises the achievements of Indigenous Australians in music. Mojo Juju have won two award from four nominations.
NLMAS
The National Live Music Awards are an Australian nationwide awards event which honour the live performance of music acts, without taking into account possible releases or recordings. Mojo Juju has been nominated a number of times in various categories and has won 'Best Live RnB / Soul Act' in both 2018 and 2019. In 2019 Juju also won the award for 'Best Live Act in Victoria'.
