Premiere: Malia, ‘Dirty Laundry’ (feat. Syd)

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Malia
Malia

Soul singer Malia has the buttery voice — not to mention the winning smile — of someone who practices what she preaches: self-love, simplicity and embracing the good in people. A shy kid reared in the Seattle suburbs, the singer — full name, Malia Cunningham — originally came to California to attend college, earning a degree in political science and sociology before finding herself shuffling through a series of unfulfilling jobs. “I just went through the motions. I never did anything with music throughout those years,” she says of those college and post-graduate days. “I was so unhappy and realized that everything about my life had to change. That’s when I sat down and had the first, honest conversation I’d had with myself in years. I asked myself, ‘What makes you truly happy, fears aside?’ And I knew the answer was and always had been music.

“I had been running from my happiness for years, in fear of what people might say … For some reason I didn’t allow myself to dream musically, I always told myself that being a singer was too far-fetched and I wasn’t good enough anyway.”

She bought a guitar and learned to play it. She began hanging around a studio, soaking up knowledge and making friends like Matt Martians and Syd from the Internet. They helped her record her first EP, released in 2015, and Malia followed up with another in 2016. Then, last week, she released her strongest statement yet, “Simple Things,” made with Internet collaborator Nicholas Green. It’s an oh-so-warm affirmation of the bromide that “life is what you make it” — and the first official single from her debut album “Late Bloomer,” coming in 2018.

This week, though, Malia closes out 2017 on a special note, with the surprise release on Friday of the single “Dirty Laundry,” a collaboration with Syd (whom Malia will support on upcoming tour dates). It shines with a funky glow as the singers trade verses over warm guitar, bass and synth, leading up to a blast of electric guitar in the bridge. Heads will be bobbing — to the beat, and with the knowledge that the “Late Bloomer” isn’t really so late at all.

||| Stream: “Dirty Laundry” (feat. Syd)

||| Also: Watch the video for “Simple Things”

||| Live: Malia opens for Syd at the Observatory on Dec. 6 (tickets) and the Novo on Dec. 7 (tickets).