I’m spending the next couple of posts catching up on some September releases that I’ve been spending time with. Mahalia‘s debut album Love and Compromise is at the top of the list and, in particular, the lead track Hide Out — a song swollen with swagger, defiance, and self-determination.
Mahalia’s story is worth reading up on. Signed to Atlantic at just 13, she’s steadily released stand-alone singles and a few EPs while continuing her studies (and, you know, being a teenager). Now, at the ripe-in-her-career-but-still-young age of 21, she’s released a robust, polished, dynamic pop R&B record chock full of killer songs.
The tracks are sonically and musically diverse; there’s dancehall beats, jazzy riffs, dead-on-style classic 90s R&B joints, neo-soul melodies, and on. But, in a testament to the intelligence of the record’s production, the power of Mahalia’s soulful vocals, and the firm grip she has on her own personal sound, the songs sound cohesive as an album. There’s no sense of over-reach here.
That’s evident from the first moment of the first song, Hide Out, which starts with a defiant quote from Eartha Kitt pulled from an amazing and inspiring interview segment of the 1982 documentary “All by Myself: The Eartha Kitt Story”). The track swells quickly on the hum of a backing gospel choir and then thrums to life with a beat drop at :24, all before Mahalia clocks in with rich, sultry vocals that take to task the poor soul stepping out on her.
The lyrics and music are fierce. A straight ahead pounding drum-kick-snare beat drives a relentless momentum, while Mahalia’s relatively flat delivery and frank lyrics lace the track with a cool, collected anger. While the song’s subject is a cheating partner, the true meaning and discovery here self-reliance and self-love. Hide Out will add steel to your spine, grit to your teeth, and a determined half-step to your gait as you walk — eyes up, ready to take on all comers. I have yet to feel anything but awesome listening to it.
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