Singer juggles tunes and objects

Matthew Mozingo performs during a session. Photos submitted

By Tom Victoria

Matthew Mozingo not only juggles musical genres, he literally tosses everything from eggs and laptops to squash. The musician is also a juggler.

The singer explained how he uses the skill to draw attention to the craft.

“There's a lot of artists out there trying to promote themselves,” he said. “There's a lot of artists standing in front of the camera with a microphone. There's a lot of artists playing the guitar in front of the camera. However, there's not a lot of artists that can juggle and sing their song at the same time.”

Matthew, 25, of Virginia can juggle just about anything imaginable.

“I did the one with three three oranges as my first video,” he said. “It did very well. That inspired me to try to try to do some different items and try to do a couple more videos. It was actually to promote my song Take You There. And then I did the basketballs. Then I started to do some random items. I juggled a laundry basket, a teddy bear and something else. I did a watermelon, a cantaloupe and a head of lettuce. I actually videoed myself juggling a laptop, a butternut squash and a lighter.”

Matthew said practice makes perfect for his juggling.

“It took about 12 takes,” he said. “There was a pillow on the floor just in case the laptop fell. It's one of those things where I can catch the attention of people with something like that where not a lot of people have that skill. And it's something that not a lot of people know that I can do. They do now, but prior, they're like, dude, I've known you for 20 years, and I didn't know you could juggle. It's been a fun thing to do, and I've really been enjoying it.”

Matthew juggles large produce.

Matthew described his musical style.

“My style varies slightly,” he said. “I like to work with different people in different areas and I like to express myself in different ways. The style that I really started out with and began my songwriting journey with is acoustic singer, songwriter. And from that, I branched off into R&B. Some of my music is very stripped back and acoustic-driven alternative style, whereas some of my other songs are more R&B-esque, but they're all tied together with the common theme of my voice, my melody writing and my style of writing really, which is what I write about: the melodies that I choose, things of that nature.”

Matthew debuted a single in March.

“I released a song on March 1 called Take You There,” and that is much more of a R&B-style song.”

Matthew released an album last year.

“My latest album is called Today,” he said. “That came out in November of 2024. That album is very much acoustically driven and that was recorded, produced and laid down in Richmond, Virginia, at In Your Ear recording studio with my friend Taylor Bess, who is one of my producer friends. That album has many themes, but love, loss and self-discovery are definitely three of the main themes.”

Matthew said his music shows a diversity in styles and songwriting.

“A lot of my songs start from the acoustic guitar and get brought to life by producing around the guitar and around the things that I write,” he said. “Whereas, my most recent single was an instrumental that was made by a producer and I wrote to that beat that was already made. I have a couple different avenues of how I create and how I write music.”

Matthew’s music is inspired by his life.

“I definitely draw from personal experience, personal relationship experiences that I've been through,” he said. “You'll hear that in my most recent album. It's very emotional, very ethereal — love, loss, working through hardship. I also write a lot about self-discovery and self-improvement with that philosophy thing going on as far as thinking about who am I? Who am I supposed to be? How can I grow as a person? And then I like to write love songs with the R&B stuff that goes hand in hand as well.”

Dating Matthew means you may end up in a song.

“I've had many situations where I've either been hurt by a person or I've let someone down or I've hurt someone or I'm longing for someone or so many things of that nature where I do grab from personal experience,” he said. “But they know before they get involved with me that I'm a musician who writes songs about my relationships and so they know what's coming. It's a special thing to be able to put down in a tangible form the things that you're feeling. That's something that is really special and is a privilege for me to be able to do is to put my feelings in the art that I make.”

Matthew said inspiration can fuel a melody as much as lyrics.

“As far as the beat already being made, of course that is what it is,” he said. “I will listen to the beat and I pick one that speaks to me. Once I've already picked that beat that speaks to me, then those sounds can influence the way that I write and what I write about, especially my most recent song Take You There. As soon as the beat came on, I was writing it with two of my friends, and they're on the remix that's coming out later.”

Matthew selected a theme based on the beat.

“As soon as the beat came on, I sat there for a second,” he said. “I was like, yo, this song needs to be about all the places that you can take your significant other: Paris, Brooklyn, Rome, London, Texas, home — boom — immediately came to my head. I was like, yep, this is what this song needs to be about, because that's what the beat sounds like to me. It could have given somebody else a completely different idea of what it should have been. But for me in that moment, I thought specifically that's what it needed to be about and that's what it reflected. Whereas, if I'm just writing something that's coming just straight from here, I might mold the sounds to be what I want originally.”

For each tune, Matthew mulls over what to do about a melody.

“Do I find a beat?” he poses to himself. “Do I find an instrumental that speaks to me or am I writing on the guitar? And do I want to work with a producer to bring that vision to life?”

Matthew knows which songs don’t need a producer.

“If the song's written on the acoustic guitar and I'm sitting in my living room and it's just me and the guitar, I write the song there like Jack Johnson would do,” he said. “I say, oh, wow, yeah, this is a great song.”

However, Matthew also knows when it’s time to draw in a producer.

“I can hear piano on it,” he said. “And I know there needs to be a little drums, a little drum beat on there. I know there needs to be some synthesizer on there. I can hear this and this and this. And I'm like, okay, yeah, I need to take this song to Taylor in Richmond because he's so good at putting other instruments on top of what I already have.”

Matthew also is inspired by hearing others’ melodies.

“Whereas, if I'm working with a producer who has a folder of beats that he's already made, and I hear one, and I'm like, whoa, that's amazing,” he said. “That needs nothing else except for me to write to it. That's pretty much the gist.”

Matthew favors strumming to other ways to make music.

“The guitar is my primary instrument,” he said. “I play a couple of other instruments, but I wouldn't call myself an instrumentalist in other areas. The guitar is really my main thing.”

Matthew performs full-time.

“I perform a variety of different ways,” he said. “I perform at vineyards. I perform at bars. I perform at breweries. I perform at certain festivals. Most of the time when I perform, I'm solo with my acoustic guitar singing stripped-down things.”

Earlier this year, Matthew played with a band with a five-piece band.

“Drummer, bass guitar, electric guitar, keyboard, and then me in the front with the acoustic and vocals,” he said. “That's the birth of the Matthew Mazingo band that's starting to form. But for the past eight, nine years, I've been performing solo with my acoustic guitar. I appreciate both very much. Performing solo, you don't have to communicate with anybody and you can do things on the whim however you want them, whereas the band, everything needs to be locked in the way that you practice, especially with a drummer.”

Matthew’s performances are as diverse as his music.

“I also do hip hop shows with some of my friends who are in the hip hop scene,” he said. “That's where my entrance to R&B began, too. My R&B hip hop leaning songs, I can perform with tracks in the background and it's just me in a microphone and I'm singing to the crowd like this. Whereas my acoustic shows, it's just me and the guitar. I like to perform as much as I can with whatever makes sense. I also like that variety of different ways that I can perform.”

Matthew has been a songwriter since he was a teen and a performer even before that.

“I've been doing solo gigs under Matthew Mozingo since 2017,” he said. “I've been writing songs under Matthew Mozingo since 2015. I've been performing really since I was in elementary school. I had a band when I was in fifth grade. We had a couple local gigs that we played at a Mexican restaurant. We played at a couple smaller festivals that let us play because we were kids and we were having fun. We were called Rainy Days and I was the lead singer with the guitar in the front, just like I am now. Little did I know back then I would love it just as much and it would be my full-time job.”

Matthew is a native of the Old Dominion.

“I was born in Harrisonburg, Virginia, grew up around that area,” he said. “Went to James Madison University, studied education history. Virginia has been a special place for me. People say that they can hear that reflected in some of my songs as well. I was born in the mountains and so it is a special thing for me to connect with where I'm from.”

Matthew didn’t have to go beyond his family tree to find musical inspiration.

“Let me me grab this photo off of my wall,” he said. “This is my Uncle Toby. As a youngster, he was my very first inspiration. He used to sing songs to me all the time. He would make up songs and put my name in them and sing to me. My Uncle Toby really had a lasting impact of seeing him across the way and how cool the sound was coming out of the instrument and just how incredible it looked and felt and something in me that ached to be able to do the same thing as him.”

Matthew played a guitar since he was a tyke.

“I got my very first guitar, a toy guitar, as a child and was just obsessed with strumming it,” he said. “I used to sit in front of the radio and strum away my guitar.”

“I was sitting there writing lyrics in a notebook in my room at 7, 8 years old.”

Matthew plays a toy guitar while his uncle strums a full-size one.

Matthew started taking guitar lessons at 9.

“And before that I was singing in choir, church, school performances, stuff like that,” he said. “But I didn't really know what I was doing at that point. It was just something fun. When I was about 13, 14, I began to fall in love with creatives and songwriters themselves and their process and their music and then thought that it would be something that I would want to do.”

But Matthew was honing his writing even younger.

“I was 8 years old writing, writing songs in my room, copying the Jonas Brothers, changing their lyrics up and making my own songs based on their songs because I didn't necessarily know how to create my own song,” he said. “But looking back on that, I realized now how important that was and how special that is that I was doing that. I was sitting there writing lyrics in a notebook in my room at 7, 8 years old.”

Matthew’s life already was inspiring music.

“My travel basketball team when I was 8 years old, broke apart and formed a couple different teams,” he said. “I'm an emotional person and at that age, I was sad that my friends were leaving me from the team and I actually wrote a song in my bed over and over again. Just thinking of the melodies about the fact that I was sad that my team was splitting apart. I'd have my teammates’ names in the song and never really thought about how wild that is or how special that was that I was doing that at that age.”

Matthew’s musical inspirations also vary.

“I have many, but if I were to give you a list they would be Daniel Caesar, Justin Bieber, Jack Johnson, John Mayer, Smino,” he said. “I could go on and on. There's dozens of artists that I really love and connect with. But the one artist that truly dragged me into wanting to be an artist myself was Justin Bieber. When I was about 15 years old, I almost wanted to be him in that time and that pushed me into writing my own stuff.”

Matthew doesn’t fret about achieving fame.

“It's not necessarily about giving up things or trying to be as successful as possible,” he said. “To me, it's more about making things that connect with people and can make an impact. It's not necessarily about being this or that, but I want to grow as much as I can, and if that's what that looks like, then great, and if not, that's wonderful, too. I'm at the point where, especially being in Virginia, I've had people recognize me being out or whatever, but obviously I'm not a big enough artist to be rushed by the paparazzi. And of course, that's something that a lot of celebrities complain about.”

Matthew takes care of his valuable commodity.

“I have to be intentional about how I use my voice,” he said.

Matthew explained he avoids talking on a day before doing weekend shows.

“I try to speak softly,” he said about the days he must talk to people. “And I also drink a lot of tea. I drink tea with honey and I also put the Ricola little capsule-like mints that have herbs. Stick one of those in there, stir it around. Sometimes, I'll hit some vocal massaging and try to stay hydrated and not do unnecessary things with my voice. I try to be proactive and I try to be intentional about taking care of my voice.”

Matthew’s juggling also goes back to his youth.

“When I was about 8 years old, I went to this place called Pumped Up, which is a bouncy house arena for kids and birthday parties,” he said. “I was at a birthday party and one of the workers there was an older gentleman who was a real fun guy with the kids and would teach kids magic tricks and stuff like that. He asked me if I wanted to learn how to juggle. I was like, yeah, sure. He started off with one hand, up and down with two balls. Obviously, the first time I didn't get it, but I was so intrigued by that, that I went home and started to practice.”

Matthew stuck with it.

“My grandmother bought me these juggling balls,” he said. “I just started practicing all the time when I was hanging out at her house or I'd take them back to my parents. Over the years, PE class or at basketball practice or just hanging around, I would just try to juggle things. Pens in class or whatever. I got to the point where I was starting to challenge myself with juggling a basketball, a tennis ball and a volleyball, three different-sized objects and trying to get better at it.”

“It's knowing who I am, and it's understanding that it's not just gonna happen. It's not just gonna be there. I have to put in the effort to do it, and I love doing it.”

Fortune played a hand in aiding Matthew’s songwriting.

“I took a trip to Medellin, Colombia, with one of my best friends,” he said. “I was staying at the top of a penthouse in someone's apartment, Airbnb. I couldn't take my guitar with me on the plane for a multitude of reasons. When I arrived at the Airbnb, there was a guitar sitting outside of my room in a case. This dude didn't know me at all. Had no clue I was a musician. And he was like, yeah, I thought that'd be a good decoration for your room while you're here. It was the exact type of guitar that I was working on my album for. I was working with a nylon Spanish-style guitar for a lot of my last album. I opened the case and it was a Spanish nylon guitar.”

The stroke of serendipity inspired Matthew.

“There was this fire and this light in me,” he said. “I don't even know what to do with myself right now because I'm gonna be here for two and a half weeks. And now I have the exact guitar that I've been using to write this album. So I wrote the intro track for my last record. It's called Eyes. I wrote that on the porch on the balcony of the skyrise in Medellin, Colombia. And that kicked off my album. It was such a beautiful moment. I can still see the skyline. First line of the song is ‘leaving the safe sky.’ I was writing that as I was looking out at the skyline of Columbia. Most beautiful place I've ever seen.”

Matthew doesn’t get to slack off making music.

“There are days where I have to force myself to work on things, and it's really important to do that and to force myself to do those things,” he said. “There's a lot of people that act on inspiration only. But what I found is if you force yourself to make a song, the beginning might be tough, and you might not have your best work come out immediately. But then as you work through that and you get past that hump, your brain's like, oh, this is what we're doing. Cool. Then it all comes out.”

Matthew said not giving up yields results.

“Sometimes, I'll have a session where maybe I write a stupid, silly song first, just get it out,” he said. “But then the next one that comes after that, 20 minutes after, is the best thing I've ever written. It's practice. It's repetition. It's knowing who I am, and it's understanding that it's not just gonna happen. It's not just gonna be there. I have to put in the effort to do it, and I love doing it.”

Matthew dispensed advice to aspiring musicians.

“As far as artistically, make what you want to make,” he said. “Do not listen to what you think people want to hear or what you think is popular. You shouldn't be trying to be the current sound or try to copy an artist that's hot right now. The reason that artist is hot right now is because they followed their intuition and they made the music that speaks to them specifically. So never compromise your intuition. Never compromise your own artist's voice and what you want for yourself and the music that you want to make.”

Matthew said musicians need to network.

“As far as the business side of things, reach out to people, make connections in your community,” he said. “It's not always about trying to get discovered by big people. It's about making important connections in your own community, becoming friends with musicians around you and lifting yourself up that way. It can be a daunting thing doing this alone, but working with people and meeting friends and making it a part of your social life and understanding that it's more than just a business and it's more than just trying to make it. It's a way of life.”

Matthew said artists must put their faith in their work.

“A lot of people get opportunities because they ask,” he said. “If you don't ask, the answer is always no. Be proactive and believe in yourself and believe in your own mission and believe in your own art.”

Matthew’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/matthewmozingo/

Matthew’s website: https://www.matthewmozingomusic.com/

Matthew’s YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUz2L5dQ0tgwh9dwl65zvwA?app=desktop