MAHALIA

As a child growing up in Leicester where she lived until moving to Birmingham two years ago Mahalia’s mum would drive her to school to the sounds of Etta James, Floetry, Aaliyah and Tweet. But hearing Corinne Bailey Rae’s self-titled debut album that immediately captivated the then nine year-old’s creative imagination. “My mum bought me the album for Christmas. I put it on and immediately wanted to dance and sing and jump around. Within days, I knew every word of that album by heart and slowly I discovered I had a voice of my own.”   

Let The World See Your Light, which captured the attention of platforms such as SBTV, and Amy Wadge, a little known writer who later found success with Ed Sheeran on Thinking Out Loud. Wadge took Mahalia to see her friend Ed play in Wolverhampton, much to Mahalia’s delight. “I was such a huge fan, so I was really excited not just to meet him but to see him perform,” she remembers. “We talked for a little bit, he wrote a really lovely tweet   about me and it all kicked off from there.”  Ed invited Mahalia to join him on several dates to perform a duet of  Goldrush; with his own star in the ascendant, record labels were keen to find out more  about the 14  year-old guitar playing songwriter   able to hold her own alongside Sheeran.   Mahalia ended up signing   with   Asylum, the same label as Ed.   

With a debut album set for 2016, Mahalia closed last year with the EP Never Change, four tracks of sublime songwriting. The tantalizing Maisie, Mahalia’s childhood nickname, is produced by Supa Dups and 1985 and is a letter to her older self from her younger self. “I’d just turned 17 when I wrote it and I didn’t know if I wanted to focus on music or go back to school. I had feelings of wanting to move out and find my freedom but also of wanting to be around my friends and family. The song is from the younger me, telling myself to slow down, don’t rush to grow up, enjoy this time while you can because life will get harder soon enough.” The stunning Borrowers has Up sees Mahalia encourage the inert and insecure to rise up. ‘Don’t be sleeping with your eyes open when you could be throwing doors wide open’. The title track Never Change takes the tempo up a notch as Mahalia tells her boy if he can’t fix up, she’s off. The EP is stripped back and subtle, refusing to be stifled by genre, while retaining a cohesiveness that is inventive, youthful and utterly mesmerising.