The singer, originally from Malawi and awarded the Echo in 2013, moved to London as a teenager, where she gradually developed her own style of cool jazz, pop, soul, reggae and blues thanks to a wide range of musical influences. Her velvety, powerful voice is just as multifaceted as her musical world, and she uses it to move confidently between genres and emotions.

Her 9th studio album, One Grass Skirt To London (MPS/Edel) will be released on November 1st, 2024 and symbolizes a journey in several respects: A musical, geographical, temporal, and above all, a sentimental journey, as the 14 carefully selected songs on this album are of inestimable personal value. Since her debut with Yellow Daffodils in 2002, Malia has established herself as a world-class, charismatic presence both in the estimation of critics and through numerous appearances in renowned jazz clubs and at festivals.

Almost all of the covers on the new album are from film soundtracks, and what she conveys in them are crucial moments in her life, intense emotions, intimate revelations experienced in the semi-darkness of cinemas in Blantyre (Malawi), Putney in south London or in front of the family TV. Using film music, she also pays a moving tribute to her father with “When I’m Cleaning Windows”, written by George Formby in 1936 for the movie Keep Your Seat Please.

“Behind each of these songs there is either a memory, a personal experience or the feeling of being able to pass on a part of myself. I am aware that this album encompasses various genres. But if it is to convey a certain image of me, then it is that of a music lover in the broadest sense of the word. If music touches and moves me, it does not matter what genre it belongs to.”

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