On this episode of Mind Massage, Mahalia takes us on a sound journey with some of her favorite items such as Doritos, lip gloss, candles and more!
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MusicTranscript
00:00 Hello, my name's Mahalia and welcome to my mind massage.
00:25 I am going to take you through a sound journey using some of my favourite things.
00:37 I'm going to start my journey with lip gloss because I need to be camera ready so that
00:45 we can keep going and I can look really pretty.
00:48 So I don't actually know how to say this, I think it's the 'nayj', that's how I say it.
00:53 But this is their Glowy Balm and it's gorgeous so we're going to unbox it now.
00:57 Don't look at my nails, I need to get them done.
01:07 This is so exciting.
01:08 I love a brand new lip gloss and then, oh I wish, I don't think you're going to be able
01:15 to hear this.
01:16 Stunning.
01:17 And it smells amazing.
01:32 I am from the UK, I'm from a really small city called Leicester, which nobody ever knows
01:40 but a few years ago our football team won the Premier League, which was huge.
01:47 We have the cheese that's called Red Leicester, it's kind of like orange cheddar but it's
01:53 amazing.
01:55 I think growing up in the UK did really inspire my music.
01:59 I think, you know, as a kid I was always really into soul, R&B, acoustic soul and I think
02:07 you can really tell the difference between American soul R&B and UK soul R&B.
02:14 And I think I definitely was heavily inspired by UK soul and R&B artists and I think that's
02:21 kind of what set me off.
02:23 I don't think Leicester inspired me musically, if I'm being totally honest, but growing up
02:31 in a small city and not really having much to do meant that I was so, like music was
02:38 so exciting to me and it was something that I could actually focus on and get excited
02:43 about because there wasn't really much going on.
02:46 So I think the city helped me find something that I really deeply cared about.
02:53 I have to describe my sound in the way that my dad describes my sound and my dad calls
02:58 it psycho-acoustic soul.
03:02 Acoustic soul I understand, psycho I don't understand, but that's what he says.
03:07 He likes to say that he calls it psycho because of the lyrics but I actually think he just
03:12 thinks I'm nuts.
03:15 So psycho-acoustic soul.
03:23 So I sweat more than most people.
03:28 Sometimes I think I should see a doctor about it.
03:32 But ever since I was about 17 and I started going clubbing and going out with my friends,
03:40 which was totally, well it wasn't fine, but you know in the UK the legal age is 18 so
03:46 I was only a year illegal.
03:48 But when I used to go out I used to be the only person running to the bathroom every
03:53 5 minutes because I was sweating so bad.
03:55 So I started buying fans and this was before you could buy those electric fans that now
04:00 everybody has in the rave.
04:02 But I just became obsessed.
04:04 And you know how everybody says that you use more energy fanning yourself?
04:08 I disagree.
04:09 So this is my fan and all of my fans tend to have something quite cute on them.
04:15 This one says "you shine" which I do when I sweat.
04:20 I wonder if I can make that sound better.
04:25 Wow.
04:31 My fan collection at home is pretty huge.
04:34 I have different ones.
04:35 Sometimes I collect them at festivals.
04:37 Most festivals will have a fan in a merch stand.
04:40 But honestly I get them all in clubs.
04:42 I just go to the club and go behind the bar and ask them if they have a fan and they will.
04:47 The only thing about that means that I have a bunch of fans that basically just tell everyone
04:51 that I'm a bit of a co-getter.
04:54 I'm a bit of a night...
04:56 I'm not a night owl.
04:58 But I like going dancing so all my fans say like house music or like love black music
05:03 or like R&B night at Arcadian.
05:06 It's a little bit promotory.
05:09 But here we are.
05:12 [TAPS]
05:13 Okay first of all, these tops are the best tops when you just have a little like...
05:25 [TAPS]
05:26 Wait, let's do it again.
05:28 [TAPS]
05:33 The suction.
05:35 I am just obsessed with smells to be honest.
05:39 I kind of... when I'm at home I always have either a candle on or incense or something.
05:46 Or my boyfriend's always burning Pelo Santo so we always have something moving around the house.
05:52 Candles is my favourite.
05:55 And oh my god this is a fun lighter.
05:58 Look at this lighter.
06:00 I also love lighters.
06:03 In my living room, this is actually such a horrendous story for me to tell.
06:10 But one time I was staying at this place and there was this ashtray in the hotel room.
06:16 And this ashtray was like... it was like this.
06:20 It was bigger than my head.
06:22 It was a huge kind of cube.
06:24 It was the kind of thing that you could do serious damage with.
06:27 And I stole it which is crazy and you can't tell anybody but I stole it.
06:31 Because I just loved it so much.
06:33 So now I have this ashtray in my living room with about 100 lighters in.
06:37 [TAPS]
06:40 [LIGHTER BUZZING]
06:47 Oh my god.
06:48 Ah.
06:49 [LAUGHS]
06:50 And there she is lit.
06:52 What is this scent?
06:53 Peace and Tranquility.
06:55 Kashmir Jasmine.
06:59 IRL is basically, to me right now, it feels like a love letter to myself.
07:06 And I kind of made it because when we were in lockdown and just through the pandemic,
07:13 it just felt like everything was so inside.
07:16 Everything, like nothing was IRL.
07:18 It was all over the phone and like house party and Zoom and FaceTime.
07:23 I did Christmas with my family on Zoom which I don't really want to ever do again.
07:29 And I just, I kind of, I wanted to call this album IRL because in that time of lockdown,
07:39 I found it incredibly hard to create and write music and to connect
07:43 because I just wasn't experiencing anything.
07:46 You know, I started doing things that I hadn't really done before.
07:49 I was going out a lot.
07:50 I was going dancing.
07:52 I was going to see my family.
07:54 Like it felt like it gave me this new wave of like excitement to just live.
08:00 And that's how IRL was born really.
08:03 And all the stories on it are about that time.
08:07 And there's a lot of reflection in there.
08:10 I think it's just all about that time and me existing in that time and what that felt like.
08:18 My last item or just what I want to show you is a skill.
08:23 I don't know where it came from, but I've been doing it since I was a child.
08:26 So I don't actually want to eat these Doritos right now,
08:30 but I do have bowls so that I can put the Doritos in the bowl
08:35 because I don't want to throw them in the bin.
08:37 So we're going to empty this packet.
08:41 Oh, this is my favourite flavour.
08:43 We don't have nacho cheese flavour in the UK.
08:45 So when I come here, this is the first one I get.
08:48 These are Corn Ranch.
08:50 They look so delicious.
09:13 [Bag crinkling]
09:18 Sorry.
09:20 Okay.
09:22 I have this thing now that whenever I'm eating crisps, chips,
09:34 whenever I'm eating crisps, I will finish the packet and immediately fold it.
09:40 So it's probably one of my favourite things to do.
09:47 Again, don't look at my nails. I'll kill you.
09:51 At least they match the packets.
09:54 And then we make a fold here and then we fold over.
09:59 And then we fold this round.
10:02 And then this comes in here.
10:09 So now we've got a square going on.
10:12 Fold this up.
10:14 And then fold in.
10:18 I don't think I'm showing you very well, but...
10:21 And then we have a triangle.
10:25 What's really cute is whenever I'm with my parents,
10:31 which is usually like around the holidays, and I eat crisps,
10:35 I'll always give it to my dad and he'll always take it and put it in his pocket.
10:40 But yeah, I still do this every single day.
10:45 My best self-love advice is just to be okay with the fact that everything is supposed to fluctuate.
10:56 Everything is supposed to go up and down.
10:59 I'm kind of in a phase right now where I'm like, you know, poking at my body and like not really enjoying my skin or my hair.
11:07 And self-love isn't all about the physical, but I'm kind of going through a physical thing right now.
11:14 And I think it's okay to admit that and it's okay to understand that this isn't a feeling that is going to last forever.
11:23 You know, I'm probably going to come out of this and feel like a bad bitch again.
11:27 And I might go back in.
11:29 But I think my best piece of advice really is just to be comfortable with that and not be afraid of that feeling.
11:35 You know, because when you go low, you have to like, what's that saying?
11:40 It's like, when you go low, you have to come, or like when you go down, you have to come back up.
11:46 The only other direction is up.
11:48 And yeah, I hope that's a good piece of advice.
11:54 Basically, it's fine to hate yourself right now. I'm joking.
11:57 But you know, it's just, it's okay, basically.
12:00 Like, it's, I don't think we, I think we need to stop feeling guilty about looking at ourselves and going, "Ugh, I'm not sure."
12:09 I think that feeling is fine.
12:11 I don't think you need to feel bad about that, to be honest.
12:14 I'm Mahalia. Thank you so much for coming to my mind massage.
12:20 Make sure to check out my album, IRL.
12:24 That was perfect.
12:30 Okay, okay.
12:31 Thank you.
12:32 (electronic beeping)