Portraying her passion for purposeful topics in a calm and cohesive manner, Amahla proceeds, ‘’I want people to look back at my catalogue and understand what is going on in the world through my songs, so I’m conscious of that when I write. It’s hard when you are a black woman to not talk about what is going on around you, especially today. So yeah, I want to make something that stands the test of time and document that.’’
Authenticity permeating all she does, Amahla describes her sound as Soul. ‘‘However, it changes because it borrows from genres such as, Folk, Jazz, R&B and Pop. But at the end of the day, I just want it to be classic and write great songs. Because my voice is reminiscent of artists that have come from a previous era, I think Soul music encapsulates all of those things”.
Exposing the layers and process of creating her debut EP, Consider This, she explains, ‘’It’s weird looking back now, I wrote all of the songs about 8-9 months after finishing university. I did my dissertation on police brutality, specifically on mobile footage and how it is creating an archive of brutality against the black body in America. A very heavy subject matter. I also led a ‘Decolonise The Curriculum’ campaign in my final year. So, because that was such an intense year, I just stopped watching the news and reading books for the following 4-5 months after graduating. I just needed to switch off and that’s what I did’’. ‘’The songs on the EP took around two and a half months to write and I think that is where all those emotions I hadn’t dealt with, for those few months prior, needed to come out. And they did’’, she explains.
Amahla lets us in on the inspiration for Dorothy’s Verses, ‘’My grandmother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s during my second year of university and I was quite heavily involved in helping her with attending appointments and all of that stuff.’’ Delving deeper, she calmly details, ‘’It was really hard, emotional and scary to see someone that you love sort of melt away. My grandmother talked to me about things in her life that were hard to deal with, emotional or very happy. I wanted to touch on that experience, but as the song developed, I realized it wasn’t about me at all, but about her life and what women in general deal with and how we overcome situations.’’ She cohesively summarises.
Carrying that same theme of originality across all her records, Amahla discloses what she enjoys most about being a musician. ‘’I love performing live – that’s what I live for! I love talking to people about music and how they found my performance to improve, touring, working with my band and everything that goes into a live performance.’’ She also optimistically unveils with a jovial and fearless tone, who her dream collaboration would be with. ‘’I will say this forever until I die – Stevie Wonder. I downloaded Spotify at age 12 or 13 and was like ‘omg all his songs are here’, she chuckles. ‘’So, I listened to them over and over again’’, she adds. Demonstrating her strength of character yet again, she cheerfully and confidently states, ‘‘I’m holding out hope!’’.
With less than a week until she graces the stage at her upcoming gig, Amahla notes ‘’I think that because it will be held in a church venue, coupled with the acoustics, it’s the perfect place to see my show. It allows you to understand the depth of instrumentalism. But it’s also a comfortable environment. I sometimes say that I want my music to feel like a cup of tea. Homely, familiar, comforting and warm. I feel like St Pancras Old Church is a beautiful venue to share my music and songs I will be releasing”, she gently concludes.
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