Genre:Soul
With her powerfully vulnerable lyrics and sincerely breathtaking voice, Malika Hamzaa is an artist whose music sounds emotionally-wise beyond her 20 years of age. As the London singer-songwriter – who goes, simply, by Hamzaa – says, “The most beautiful thing about humans is that we can speak; that we can say how we feel and voice our opinions”. This expressiveness that she sees in human nature is something that seems to resound innately and effortlessly in her soulful, R&B-pop, not least on her stunning EP, 2018’s First Signs Of Me.
Hamzaa has been rising steadily into the public consciousness this past year: there was her sold-out debut headline show at London’s St Pancras Old Church, followed at the start of 2019 by another sell-out performance, this time at Omeara – the show got a four star review in the Evening Standard, who compared her to a 19-era Adele. She has supported Ray BLK; been called “the real deal” by The Line Of Best Fit; received radio support across tastemaker platforms like Repezent, national stations like Radio 1Xtra, and Julie Adenuga’s Beats1 show; not to mention co-signs from Stormzy, Wretch32 and Ghetts, who both hopped on part two of her sublime track.