MAHALIA

Spending her childhood in Syston, Leicestershire, Mahalia, similar to her geographical beginnings, felt like an outsider, particularly in school. Quickly, she turned those feelings into confidence and self love, finding refuge in the love of musical performance and ideation. Coming from a strong support system in her mother and father, she started performing at open-mic nights, learning to face her audience and sing with intention.

Mahalia’s willingness to grow and shed her skin, led to her signing to Asylum/Atlantic Records at 13. “All of a sudden, I was back and forth to London at the weekend, in sessions and recording constantly,” she says. Also attending the prestigious Birmingham Ormiston Academy, she added acting classes into her artistic repertoire, as well as opting to develop as a youth before diving full force into music.

The ability to pause activity whilst still being signed led to Mahalia embracing the multi-faceted, layered dimensions of being a teenager is exactly what informed her debut long-player project Diary of Me, released in 2016, when the singer was only 17. “‘Marry Me’ and ‘I Remember’ were some of the first songs I ever wrote about love,” she explains. Across the nimble, but ambitious release, Mahalia’s concoction of experiences are beautifully put across neo-soul productions, her candid, Gen-Z references of Snapchat et al, helping to inform her societal, and romance-related ruminations.