Mahalia on her emotional, empowering new record: “I didn’t think I would finish this album”

We’re sitting at a table tucked away in the corner of Brooklyn’s Dumbo House and Mahalia is wiping away tears. The Leicester-born singer has only been chatting with NME for a few minutes when she starts to well up, owing to more than just the thought of releasing her third album, ‘IRL’ in July. “I delivered the master yesterday which is really beautiful and I just keep crying,” she says, before adding a disclaimer. “I’m also a bit hungover and I had a row with my boyfriend so there are a lot of emotions going on. But do you know what it really is? I didn’t think that I’d finish this album.”

It’s been a testing road to this release for the former NME 100 star who first signed to Atlantic Records when she was just 13 and spent her adolescent weekends driving back and forth to London for recording sessions. In 2016, she released her first project, ‘Diary Of Me’, an early sign of her penchant for soulful love songs. Her big break happened in 2017, when a video of her performing sultry, throwback R&B track, ‘Sober’ went viral, rapidly amassing more than 50 million views. She kept up that momentum the following year, releasing her EP ‘Seasons’, with each of the five tracks depicting a different stage of romantic entanglements.

Though she was approaching a decade in the industry, 2019’s debut album ‘Love And Compromise’, acted as a fresh introduction. Tracks like ‘I Wish I Missed My Ex’ showcased her sharp songwriting and her sublime vocals, and the rise came dotted with multiple nods at The BRITs and a Grammy nomination for Best R&B Performance. Despite those validating achievements, as recently as 2021, the singer-songwriter told NME “as a young woman, I had no idea who the fuck I was”. Looking back on her debut, she reiterates that sentiment, adding that she was happy the success wasn’t “sky-high”. “I just wasn’t ready,” she says today. “I hadn’t had time to understand who I am as an artist, who I am as a woman. I couldn’t answer what my intention was with my music.”

Now at 25, when asked if she knows the answers to those questions she responds with a firm, “Definitely”. But, as she set her sights towards her second album, the process of transmuting that self-awareness into music wasn’t easy. “I had just come through a traumatic breakup and I was looking at the woman I was becoming and wondering if I liked her or not,” she says. “That was a difficult space to create in. There was an emotional block.”

Her second LP also reflects her desire to share more of her true self with listeners. “In the past, my songs have been about putting my middle finger up to the man but I wanted people to know I don’t always come out on top,” she says. “I wanted to share real moments. I wanted people to see I have the ability to be vulnerable in my strength. I wanted people to see that vulnerability isn’t weakness. The album became this love letter to myself.”

The title track not only became a thesis statement for the collection but representative of a pivotal turning point in Mahalia’s life. Crafted on the other side of pandemic lockdown, the song focuses on her desire to connect without the aid of technology and the drive to make her visions a reality. In it she sings about growing up, her parents helping her drive her career forward, and the most pivotal moments of her musical trajectory thus far, tying it all together with the chorus, “I just want to see in real life / what it is I see when I close my eyes”.

Seeing her creative life from a bird’s eye view is also what led her to her track ‘In My Bag’. “I have massive imposter syndrome and I didn’t realise that until therapy,” she says. “I was talking about my career and my therapist was like ‘why are you talking about yourself like that?’. I didn’t realise it but I was not believing in myself, not realising how far I’ve come, not realising I have this brilliant talent. I just wasn’t seeing it.”

According to Mahalia, one of the reasons she found it hard to see the depth of her success is R&B’s reception in the UK. “I felt like I was left out of the conversation quite a lot and I’ve always been vocal about that,” she says. “It’s different here in the States, but in the UK the R&B scene doesn’t get the love I feel like it deserves.”

In February, Mahalia wore a ‘Long Live R&B’ jacket to the BRITs in response to the lack of representation at the awards. “That’s been an ongoing conversation for most of if not all of my career,” she says. “It’s made me doubt myself.” At the request of her therapist, she put together a list of her accomplishments and it evolved into the self-assured anthem. “Once I started looking at it, I was like ‘Wow, I really am in my bag and I haven’t seen it’”.

Therapy became fertile ground for ‘IRL’ inspiration. Another session evolved into a song, after Mahalia’s realisation that “whenever I’m talking about trauma, I’m usually laughing or smiling when talking about it.” The track, ‘Goodbyes’ exemplifies the ability she has to juxtapose multiple emotions at the same time. It leans in like a lullaby before becoming a full-on club banger, with her asking “Why, is this all I am to you? Is this how it ends?” “It’s literally the song on the record that makes me jump and cry at the same time,” she says. “That was a painful song to write and I didn’t want it to feel painful to sing.”

‘IRL’ also comes with a star-studded list of features. “The first feature I got was Jojo on ‘Cheat’ and that was a fucking dream for starters,” she says. Her collab with the ‘Leave (Get Out)’ singer, is a sprawling call out, delivered with the same swagger of a ‘90s R&B radio breakup hit. Mahalia also taps up-and-coming American singer, Joyce Wrice for her track ‘In My Head’, singer-songwriter Destin Conrad for her track ‘It’s Not Me, It’s You’, and artist Kojey Radical the song, ‘Wassup’ which interpolates the mid-’90s hit Soul for Real hit ‘Candy Rain’.

When it came to bringing behemoth rapper, Stormzy onto the album for her slow-burning ode to romance, ‘November’, it was an easy decision for Mahalia. “It didn’t feel right to not have a British artist featured on the album as well, because everyone thinks I’m American,” she says with a laugh. “I’ve loved Stormzy forever and he’s also become like a big brother to me. He’s always been a champion for what I do and vice versa. I asked him because he’s been in his singing bag lately, so to send Stormzy a classic love song wedding song was pretty nice.”

Though her co-writing experience with recent chart-topper Raye made the cut, her favourite of the collection is opener, ‘Ready’. It trickles in with glittery arrangements that accent her ethereal delivery, as she sings “From now I know I can take what comes my way and no one can take that from me / I’m listening to my own voice only.”

“There’s a line in that song that is my favourite line I’ve ever written,” she adds. “Trying to stay stable is hard when I’m trying to keep my seat at the table’. It’s about trying to keep my foot in the door whilst going through all this shit and writing this album. It was a really weird space for me,” she says, pointing to the changing climate in the industry and the expectation to not only create music but have a sellable social media personality.

For Mahalia, the track is returning home to herself of sorts and a reminder of why she started making music in the first place. She even uses the line “rock it” repeatedly in the lyrics, reflecting a phrase her dad writes in her birthday cards and tells her before she goes on stage. “My dad has always told me to make music for people’s souls, not just for their ears,” she says. “I say that in there as well. ‘Ready’ is about saying ‘I’m here and I’m ready’. Because in the past I compromised, I wasn’t ready.”

Now that she’s comfortable sharing her full self through her music, she’s not apprehensive at the thought of ‘IRL’ going “sky high”. “If this album was to do what I hope it will do, I’m ready now.”

Mahalia’s ‘IRL’ is released July 14 via Atlantic Records

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