Native Tongue

Having started her music career fronting the rollicking Australian cabaret band Mojo Juju & The Snake Oil Merchants between 2006 and 2010, Mojo Ruiz de Luzuriaga admits to having been seen by some as ‘ethnically ambiguous’. Bullied as a schoolkid in rural NSW for being ‘Chinese’, her father was actually a Filipino immigrant, and on her mother's side there was indigenous Aboriginal heritage. That mixed family identity forms the basis of Mojo's third solo album, and is specifically addressed on the title-track, where she sings: ‘I don't speak my father's native tongue/I was born under the Southern sun/I don't know where I belong/My great granddaddy was Wiradjuri/My father came here from the Philippines/It's where I live, it's where I wanna be/Ooh but you make me feel so ill at ease’. Backed by the Pasefika Vitoria Choir, and accompanied by a striking video, the ‘Native Tongue’ single considerably widened Juju's audience when it was released last year.

Elsewhere on the album, her strong, blues-influenced voice effortlessly glides from gently sultry (‘1000 Years’ and ‘History’) to fully gutsy (‘Think Twice’ and ‘Never Again’), with many other pop-oriented moods in between. This well-tuned Mojo is definitely working.