On her second studio album, IRL, love and inner peace helped Mahalia reconnect with the real world. As we chat at Brooklyn’s Baby’s All Right, the Leicester, UK-born musician is blunt and brutally endearing about her laundry list of recent moments.
At the height of COVID-19, she broke up with her boyfriend, fired her manager, dug herself out of depression, suffered burn out on Zoom and FaceTime, and lost out on the momentum of her debut album, Love and Compromise. These experiences culminated in her revolt against “being inside and everything happening through the f**king phone,” ultimately inspiring her aptly-titled forthcoming work.
“I go in-depth about my story on ‘Ready‘ and ‘IRL’ because when I dropped my debut album, I felt like I had a lot of momentum. Then the pandemic hit, [and] that momentum was killed,” the singer, born Mahalia Burkmar, said. “I didn’t get to work rooms, and I didn’t get to introduce myself. People have an idea of who I am, or an assumption, so those songs are what it is, who I am—then and now.”
Leading up to IRL, scheduled to drop on July 14, Mahalia ramped up her public appearances. The rising star also revealed she’s embarking on an EU and UK tour beginning in October. She’s dropped two singles, “Terms & Conditions” and “Cheat,” featuring JoJo. The 25-year-old singer inked major brand deals as well— becoming an ambassador for both Puma and Pandora jewelry in the UK. When we meet at the bustling Brooklyn venue to chat in May, she’s also preparing for the night’s festivities: Mahalia Presents, an initiative to help uplift emerging R&B talent. She’s really been outside.
Inside, Mahalia cruises through a tower of IRL CD sleeves, signing each one with care and intention for her fans. She understands this rollout is a moment to engage and reclaim her narrative after her ascension was halted by the pandemic. Mahalia expresses that she’s optimistic that she can reconfigure what she built on Love and Compromise—artistically and socially—and move forward.
“To many people, I was four years ago, so I’m trying to push myself back in,” she asserts. “I haven’t gone away anywhere. It’s just that there was a f**king [pandemic] in the middle of it. So, I think what worried me about [this project] was that people—let’s say I put out my first single—what worried me was that people were going to think I’m starting now.”
And for this matter, she offers listeners another crack at her origin story, highlighting her decade-long career. “I’ve been here. And after feeling like that time was stolen, I wanted to take it back, and I wanted to be able to say to people, ‘This is where I’ve come from. And if you check my discography, you can see I was here but that this was taken.'”
It’s true. Glance at her stat sheet, and you’ll find that Mahalia signed to Atlantic Records at age 13. Since then, she’s built quite the catalog on the label with 2012’s Head Space EP, Never Change EP in 2015, 2016’s Diary of Me, a massive single in 2017 with “Sober,” her Seasons EP in 2018, and then, of course, 2019’s Love and Compromise, which spawned her hit singles “What You Did,” featuring Ella Mai and “Simmer” featuring Burna Boy, followed by 2020’s Isolation Tapes EP. When she discusses her career, her disappointment in having to “restart” is palpable.
But in her latest effort, she doesn’t sound much like a woman dissatisfied—IRL displays a woman at peace, or at least on a journey in search of it. Tracks like “In My Bag,” “November” featuring Stormzy, and “Wassup” ooze with newfound confidence. There are also instances of reclaiming her energy from lovers looking to waste her time, like the anti-situationship jam, “Hey Stranger,” where she upholds her boundaries to prevent being used as a rebound (“I don’t like when you say ‘Hey stranger’/’Cause every woman knows what that means/You just came out of another bad break up/And now you want me to be your in-between”).
Mahalia’s most charming moments arrive in the album’s intro and outro. Over cinematic production, “Ready” finds Mahalia laying the red carpet for her reintroduction to the R&B landscape, “talking that sh*t,” as she detailed with a coy smile.
The album’s title track concludes on a hopeful note, like the ending credits of a coming-of-age movie founded on honoring one’s destiny. The production here is gorgeous, kitted with slick acoustic guitar strings and goose-bump-inflicting harmonies. Mahalia paints a self-portrait on IRL, a wide-eyed yet honest snapshot of her career, love life, and a reconnection to reality.
“[IRL] is how I’ve grown. That’s how I’ve lived my life…If we’re talking about how I place myself in this world to the masses, this is it,” she says with a sanguine disposition. “You can share whatever you want; I will probably share sh*t with you… it’s all in love.”
Listen to Mahalia’s new album, IRL, below.