Malachi

10th March 2022

Malachi is a 22 year old singer / songwriter / producer from Cambridgeshire.

Check out his music here.

As a small artist, how did it feel putting out your first song on Spotify?

It was a mixture of emotions, you know. It was during lockdown and on the one hand I was absolutely terrified, but on the other I was waiting so many years, ‘cos I’ve been doing music for time. So, when it got to lockdown, I was talking to my girlfriend and we were going back and forth and she was was saying, “You’ve still not released any music yet,” and I was like “Yeah, I know I’m just waiting for the right time,” and then we had a real deep conversation and she said, “Look, you’ve been waiting for the right time since I’ve known you, so I don’t know if you’re ever gonna find a time that you’re 100% okay with, but it’s about just being as okay as you can with it, ‘cos it’s not gonna be the first and last song you ever release. You’re going to keep releasing music.” So, I thought, you know what, yeah, let’s just release a song, screw it. If it sounds okay, it sounds okay. If people love it, people love it, but at least I know where to go from there. So, yeah it was a mixture, but I think overall I’m happy that I did it.

How would you describe the music that you make?

That’s a tough one, you know. That’s a real tough one, ‘cos I feel like the four songs that I’ve got out, they’re all completely different to each other. The first one sounds more like hip hop, grime. Whereas, the third one that I’ve got sounds more like, US American rap, hip hop, R&B. So, I think I’m still in that stage of still trying to find my sound, so I guess if was to label it, I’d say experimental. That’s probably what I’d say, yeah that’s the best way I can describe it.

Do you feel like the sound that you’ve released and the sound that you’re yet to release is different?

Oh massively, yeah completely. I think that’s why I’m in this sort of stage at the minute, ‘cos I’ve not released music for a minute now and I think one of the main reasons for that is, is ‘cos I was going through that - as cliche as it’s gonna sound - going through that phase of just trying to find my sound and trying to find the type of artist that I wanna be. So yeah, the music I’ve got on my laptop compared to the music that I’ve released is completely different.

Who are your biggest influences?

I’ve not got - I don’t think I got like a set few influences. I think I take influence from multiple genres and so many different artists that it’s hard to label just a handful. I feel like it’s almost disrespectful for me to say that I like XY and Z without mentioning all these other people that I like and have been listening to for time. I think if I was forced to come up with a few artists that I really, really love listening to, I’d say Bon Iver, M Huncho - as massive of a jump as that is - SX, he’s another one, so many different ones. I couldn’t label them all.

What’s been the hugest challenge so far?

Breaking past that barrier of being so self critical of the music that I make, that’s 100% the biggest thing. I don’t know about every other artist, but I know for me personally I’m such a perfectionist in the sense that I have done the absolute best that I can and that it sounds just, unbelievable. But then I’ve also gotta take myself back from that situation for a second and realise that I’m just one person doing all of it. I don’t have any other people helping me do it, it’s simply like I produce it, I mix it and master it, I do all the marketing for it, I do my own photos and things like that. So there is just so much time and so much energy that I put into it that not everything is always gonna be 100%, but I think it’s about making sure that I’m as happy as I can be with it and knowing that I put 100% into it.

When did you realise you wanted to pursue music? Was there a particular song or artist that made you want to pursue it? Was there like a lightbulb moment where you were like, yes, this is what I wanna do?

You know what, yeah there was. I remember when I was a kid, a primary school kid aswell, every morning, as early as it was, whether it was like six or seven o’clock, something like that I’d wake up before everyone else did and I’d always run downstairs and I’d turn on the TV. And you know those like music channels like MTV or like Kiss Radio and all that sort of stuff, I’d turn on that all on the TV and I’d just be watching the music videos and I’d just be in such awe of it and I think that was the moment where I was like “I wanna do that.” I wanna be that person who is on the TV and one day there’s a kid who runs down their staircase and turns [the TV] on and sees me on there. I think that’s the sort of thing that I was going for so I think that’s what inspired me to want to become a musician and then everything else seemed to fall into place, like I was going to primary school and I was in choir or I was learning to play the guitar or I was in a band, all of these things sort of seemed to match up like a puzzle.

What’s your creative process like when making music?

Entirely depends on the day, I think some days if I’m not feeling the whole lyrics thing I’ll solely just focus on making an instrumental and I won’t force myself to make lyrics, ‘cos the one thing I’ve found is that if I’m forcing myself to do one thing and I’m just not in a good mood or I’m just not feeling it, then I won’t end up making something that I really enjoy. So yeah, if I’m not in a good mood with lyrics then I’ll focus on an instrumental and vice versa, if I’m not in a good mood with instrumentals I’ll just write some lyrics and then I’ll write something the next day to compliment that.

That’s really cool! Lastly, what can we expect from your next release?

A completely different sound to what I’ve already got. Again, I know that’s probably gonna sound very cliche, but that’s why I’ve taken some time away from it all just to try and come up with something that is authentic to me. Although the music I’ve got out at the minute, I love and it’s all music that I was able to experiment with and try things out with, I think the music I’ve got coming out this year especially is stuff that I know that is me if that makes sense, so yeah it’s gonna be very different to what people have listened to so far.

And when can we expect to hear it?

You can hope to hear something sometime in April, and you hope to hear some more stuff sometime in the summer.