In her first verse, “I put my feelings on safety/ So I don’t go shootin’ where your heart be/ ‘Cause you take the bullet tryna save me/ Then I’m left to deal with making you bleed,” she immediately lays out her fears about opening up to her love interest at the risk of hurting him somehow. In the beginning, the piano helps to paint a picture of vulnerability that Mai is trying to portray in the song. The piano has a certain elegance to it that shines through the song. The track features a classy piano laid over an R&B style beat that comes in around the chorus, which sounds like it could be taken out of the catalogue of 90s/early 2000’s R&B hits, though it doesn’t sound dated in the slightest. In her latest track “Trip,” however, Mai incorporates that classic sound far more effectively. “Boo’d Up” leans more in the mainstream pop direction, though some smatterings of that classic R&B sound still pervades the track. With her 2017 single “Boo’d Up” peaking at number 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 and a music video that currently has over 175 million views, Ella Mai’s latest single “Trip” will clearly gain attention from fans and major music acts. One artist that has recently seen overwhelming success is London singer-songwriter Ella Mai. “Working on this album, I feel like I know myself way better than ever before.In the past few years, some excellent R&B have hit the charts and captivated the music scene. “The word ‘album’ makes you nervous, especially ‘debut album.’ But to be honest, there’s no one around me making me feel a lot of pressure,” she said. She worked with her idol Brown - “A surreal experience,” she recalled – on a feverish, rail-splitting banger called “Whatchamacallit” that’s pegged as her next single and she previewed songs inspired by ’90s house, contemporary R&B and bass rattling trap. Her debut, which is expected early next year, continues her knack for crafting raw and honest meditations on lust, love and heartbreak over frosty beats. Mai has already recorded dozens of songs for the project alongside Mustard, who exclusively helmed her EP’s, and hitmakers such as Da Internz and Bryan Michael Cox.
She’s midway through recording her debut album, which she started recording this summer after getting off the road with Kehlani, who tapped the singer as an opener for her world tour. Today she’s tucked behind a control board inside a Burbank recording studio, her frame glowing yellow and blue from the mood lights installed in the booth. She then enrolled at the British and Irish Modern Music Institute, where she majored in creative musicianship. That’s when she decided to take songwriting more seriously, recording a batch of songs with a friend that she posted to Soundcloud. The group fizzled in the audition round and quickly disbanded. It was really frustrating.”Īfter graduating from high school, she returned to London and started taking music classes at a local college and in 2014 the girl group she had joined, Arize, landed on singing competition show “The X Factor.” I didn’t sing, I didn’t want anymore attention. I’m in this new environment and I had an English accent,” she remembered. “It was such a culture shock for me, being plucked from this diverse neighborhood in London into Jamaica Queens. Her mother enrolled her in a performing arts school as a child before a move to New York when she was 12 took her far out of her comfort zone. “He’s so laid back and I get a lot of creative freedom, so it’s helped me come into my own a bit easier – I’m not being pushed to do stuff the way you can be when you’re pushed through the industry on a major label.”īorn and raised in South West London, Mai – who is of Jamaican and Irish descent and named after jazz great Ella Fitzgerald – grew up singing. Even though he’s a producer, he’s been a new artist,” she said. It’s good to have a mentor that’s been through it. Over the course of five weeks they recorded material that comprised a trio of introductory EP’s – “Time” and “Change,” both released last year, and February’s “Ready” - that merged Mustard’s minimal synth-and-bass driven brand of rap dubbed “ratchet” with syrupy R&B harmonies. From there, things have moved at breakneck speed. That first night together, Mai and Mustard cut three records and he immediately signed her to his 10 Summers imprint.