The Austin 100: Jonah Mutono

By Stephen Thompson

Published March 17, 2020 at 5:00 AM EDT

Hometown: London, England/Kampala, Uganda

Genre: R&B

Why We're Excited: In a sense, Jonah Mutono grew up in hiding: He was born in London and raised in Uganda, where homosexuality is punished harshly. After a time spent recording music under the pseudonym Kidepo, he's now living in L.A. and working as himself. These days, Mutono's infectious, blissed-out R&B reflects on a desire for comfort and community amid arrangements that meet at the midpoint between the cool vulnerability of Frank Ocean and the sleek balladeering of Khalid.

Listen to Jonah Mutono's "Shoulders"

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Stephen Thompson

Stephen Thompson is a writer, editor and reviewer for NPR Music, where he speaks into any microphone that will have him and appears as a frequent panelist on All Songs Considered. Since 2010, Thompson has been a fixture on the NPR roundtable podcast Pop Culture Happy Hour, which he created and developed with NPR correspondent Linda Holmes. In 2008, he and Bob Boilen created the NPR Music video series Tiny Desk Concerts, in which musicians perform at Boilen's desk. (To be more specific, Thompson had the idea, which took seconds, while Boilen created the series, which took years. Thompson will insist upon equal billing until the day he dies.)

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