Mahalia

Leicester-born artist Mahalia’s willingness to grow and shed her skin first led to her signing to Asylum/Atlantic Records at 13. Also attending the prestigious Birmingham Ormiston Academy, she added acting classes into her artistic repertoire. Subsequently, her teen experiences are what informed her debut LP project Diary of Me, released in 2016, when the singer was only 17.
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But it was 2017 which saw Mahalia drop out of BOA, move to London and then back to Leicester before finally landing the first signs of musical breakthrough with ‘Sober’, which, upon its summer release of that year, and COLORS debut — now at 58 million views — went viral. It’s on the singer's debut album Love and Compromise however, that she stylistically blooms in experimentation and presents to the masses a holistic crème brûlée of approaches,particularly on releases like ‘Simmer’, which cracked the top 40 on the UK R&B Charts and top 50 on the Official Chart. Mahalia was effortless amidst the songs dancehall-laced, enchanting universe, proving her versatility as a British veteran in music.

Christened in many Grammy, BRIT, Soul Train and MTV Push nominations over the years, as well as two MOBO-wins for Best Female Act, and Best R&B/Soul Act, Mahalia still proves that beyond the accolades, an overarching dedication to persistence is what’s driven her to look inward, grow and ultimately challenge herself with each and every release to date. Standing as one of British R&B’s most successful contemporary faces, Mahalia continues to grow and establish herself in both her tact as an artist, but in building more robust ruminations sonically.

Mahalia’s recent EP, Letter To Your Ex, is an example of the culmination of the artistic development she sometimes inherited, but other times self-initiated under her years at Asylum/Atlantic. Armed again with the likes of JD Reid, Max Pope and Benjamin Hart — who formed a quintessential part of Letter To Your Ex — Mahalia completed her sophomore album IRL, and released the project earlier this year.

The break across the pandemic gave way to these doubts again as Mahalia battled through the recording process of her second-LP. Channelling these emotions into bonafide empowerment anthems, she fights back acknowledging her abilities and prowess across her 10-year formalised career. Emboldened by her inflections, insights and young adulthood; Mahalia is breaking the mould on IRL.