Album “IRL”
Mahalia sings about the busy life and love of today – to the sound of bygone times
Mahalia was once a fan herself – of singer Ed Sheeran.
© Sirui Ma/Warner Music
Mahalia is 25 years old, but plays a retro soul that she copied from stars like Lauryn Hill or Alicia Keys. In doing so, she contrasts the nervousness of the younger generation with a pleasant serenity.
It’s always a bit bold to say that a city is musical. Actually, she can’t be, because even she Cars honk the same everywhere. But who you meet on the street and what sounds out of the windows may shape your inner clef.
That must have been the case in the English city of Leicester where Mahalia Rose Burkmar was born. Here you could meet Engelbert Humperdinck at the bakery or the late Deep Purple founder Jon Lord at the traffic light. The singer Sam Bailey, who is not so well-known here, also walks around there, and Mahalia’s parents also made a living from the music: her father went on tour with the pop duo Erasure, for example.
Reputed to be one of England’s most ethnically diverse cities, Leicester remains what could be called a greenhouse of cultures and styles. As a child, Mahalia learned to play the guitar in this greenhouse and wrote her own songs, which were not of a fashionable fleeting nature, but in which she searched for the deep roots of good old soul.
Mahalia’s sound is reminiscent of songs from 20 years ago
You could also say: Mahalia plays a retro sound that she copied from stars like Alicia Keys and Lauryn Hill, this patient and lurking groove. Critics once described their music as neo-soul, which at times sounds like a fluffy take on R’n’B. If you play Mahalia’s music in the background, some of it actually sounds like songs from 20 years ago. But that means quality, because Mahalia sings and plays it all with an intensity that is rarely heard today.
This may also be due to the fact that the young Mahalia took a then still unknown musician as a role model, who had fascinated her with his intensity and absoluteness: Ed Sheeran. Mahalia traveled to his concerts and was always in the audience to understand how he does it, how he writes songs and sings. A few years later, Sheeran also listened to her and invited her to his concerts as support.
pop icon
From small town girl to global star – the life of Taylor Swift in pictures
Both Sheeran and Mahalia have musical histories that come from below. They, as they used to say, plied the provinces. They have played in pubs and in pedestrian zones to feel what matters and how the music connects with the life of the audience.
25-year-old Mahalia sounds older than she is
This density can be heard on Mahalia’s new album “IRL”, which means “In Real Life”. So the opposite of the exhausting life in social media, the eternal striving to find the right one in love, to the doubts about who is the right one at all. Mahalia counters the nervousness and hysteria of the young generation with the coolness and serenity of soul. This means that she sounds older than she actually is (25) and that in some songs the calm becomes a bit lazy.
“It was like a big exhale for me. I just wrote it and didn’t want to follow any trends,” says Mahalia about the album. Some of it sounds timeless. “Cheat” is wonderful, “Letter to UR Ex” and “Bag of You” too. Like a CD from before.