Amaliah: A Hotel Foyer in Dublin

Photography: Cicely Grace

Amaliah has just checked out of her hotel along the quays. She has a few hours to kill before heading back to London.

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Friday, September 30, 2022

Rain rolls down the window as the bus rolls through Rathmines Road. The few cyclists and pedestrians that are out are getting sprayed. Most people are travelling by car. Camden Street and then George’s Street. Both crammed. Nearly there. I get off at Central Bank. Walking over Ha’penny Bridge, I pass a poor soul hunched over with a used coffee cup lying empty in front of him. His hood covers his face.

I cross the famed Dublin bridge and enter the nearby Zanzibar Hotel along the quays. Beside a leaf-laden wall, Amaliah is nestled in the corner of one of the couches in the aromatic foyer having just checked out. She has her heavy jacket on as a severely slanted skylight above takes the brunt of the drilling raindrops.

“Sorry about the Dublin transport system,” I say, as we hug.

“No, no, no,” Amaliah pleads. “It's alright, don't worry.”

“Especially in the rain, you know? Because we don't have an underground or anything. So the traffic just builds.”

“Oh, yeah,” Amaliah chuckles. “Of course.”

“How are the strikes in London at the moment?” I ask.

“A bit all over the place,” Amaliah says. “That's why, for Leeds on Saturday, where I'm playing, I'm having to get a four-and-a-half-hour coach.”

Amaliah sits back down. I settle on the other end of the couch. Two women settle down on the couch opposite, talking amongst themselves.

“And you were saying it’s your first time here since you were 16?” I ask, referring to a conversation we had the night before in Tengu’s smoking area, just before she played for The Midnight Disco’s fifth birthday party. She had mentioned a school trip to Kilmainham Jail. I could barely hear her.

Amaliah nods. “First time I’m back since I was 16, yeah. The last time I was here, it revolved around very morbid history lessons, and now this time it was a lot different.”

“How was last night for you?”

“I really like playing venues that are quite small, intimate, low-lights, no-frills. That's what yesterday was, which was really nice.”

“Yeah, nice and sweaty.”

“Yeah, basically,” Amaliah says. “I had the fan on full blast.”

“What time did you finish at?”

“I think I got to bed just before four. So, a little bit tired.”

“Are you growing accustomed to the sleepless weekends?”

“Yeah, my body is now getting used to not really having a schedule from Thursday to Sunday. So, it's fine. It's not too bad. I've got my routine and all the things that I need locked down now, so I'm used to it.”

“Is it in two weeks that you have Liverpool, London —”

“London, Liverpool, and Paris in the space of two — not even two days — in the space of 24 hours. That's gonna be interesting.”

“And then you're staying over in Paris and then back to London the next day, is it?”

“My mum is actually coming with me, so we're gonna have a little holiday. Staying in Paris until the Wednesday. She's gonna come to the club which will be cute.”

“Even on that note of your mother,” I say, “you've been very open, as you should be, about your love and adoration for your mum and the inspiration she's provided for you. What's her response been to all this?”

“She absolutely loves it.”

I chuckle.

“She literally loves it,” Amaliah says, through a pocket of laughter. “Also, she likes coming to my shows sometimes, which is quite cute. Not so much the techno ones,” Amaliah laughs again, “but the disco ones she really likes.”

“Ok, not the sweaty ones.”

“Yeah, but in Paris I feel like she'll be thrown into the deep end. She's like, Yeah, it's cool. I'm ready.”

“Is she a source of humility?” I ask. “Obviously it's been quite a sudden ascent, from the outside looking in.”

“Yeah, of course,” says Amaliah.

“Do you have people like her and your family, to keep you in check almost?”

“Eh, kind of. Well, I wouldn't say my mum. She's very excited with the prospect of me playing abroad and living the life to the fullest, compared to the kind of work I was doing before. I was just working in sales and she could tell that I wasn't happy with it, so she's always saying to me, You're living the dream. Just go with it. Have fun. She's always taught me to be humble and to be kind to people, so yeah, she's a massive inspiration, both musically and my attitude towards constantly interacting with new people all the time. She's kinda like a rock to me, which sounds really cringe, but she is.”

“No, I think that's more than appropriate and I'm sure people would relate to that in many ways,” I say. “I think within the past couple of months it's really blown up exponentially. You've had the coveted Crack mix —”

Amaliah hums in agreement.

“You've had the Boiler Room set —”

“Yeah.”

“You had a Dazed feature —”

“Yeah.”

“Did you have a photoshoot for that?”

“Yeah, and that was the day after the Boiler Room.”

I laugh.

“And those two things were two days after Glastonbury, and I was just like, My God. This day is going to kill me.”

“Wow, how did that week feel, in general?”

“Oh, god. I cried so much.”

“Tears of joy, I hope.”

“Tears of joy, but also tears of comedown, tears of stress.”

I laugh. “And as you're ticking off these bucket-list goals, do you ever find that there's a deflated feeling that comes after it because it might not have given you that sense of satisfaction or fulfillment that you thought it might have?”

“Sometimes. I had that with some festival shows . . . Not every gig is gonna be perfect. There's always gonna be peaks and troughs, so I'm kinda just learning now to accept it, because the good ones are way more frequent than the bad ones, and the good ones completely overshadow and eclipse the bad ones, so it's fine.”

The downpour outside reduces to a drizzle and the sound of it hitting the skylight becomes faint.

“Are you London born and bred?” I ask. “Are you surrounded by family?”

“Yeah,” says Amaliah. “So, I grew up in North West London, then moved to East, then North, then East, and now back to North West.”

“Wow.”

“So, yeah. London born and bred. My mum is in West and I have loads of family dotted around. Some in East, some in North. Yeah.”

“Where are you now, sorry?”

“North West.”

“Is being in North West simply where you find yourself at the moment, or is there a bubble there that you're happy to be involved with?”

“So, it's actually the place where I grew up. I've moved back there,” says Amaliah.

I realise I haven’t been listening attentively.

“I was living in East London for ages,” Amaliah continues, “and East is really vibrant and fun and quite fast-paced and there's always cool things to do around there. But I wanted to move back to somewhere where I felt very calm and peaceful because my work is so hectic now and it's gonna get even more hectic as time goes on. I kind of wanted somewhere that was gonna be peace away from nightlife, because a lot of the clubs that I play in London are either in East or South.”

I nod.

“And then North London, when I lived there, basically all of my mates lived in North, so we had this little bubble in Finsbury Park. But then one-by-one, people started to move in with partners or buy their own houses and move out of the area, so now we've all dispersed. But, yeah, it's nice being back in North West. It's very nostalgic, which is cute.”

“How old are you now?” I ask.

“28,” Amaliah says.

“28,” I echo.

“Yeah,” confirms Amaliah.

“I find, especially in music circles, women are kind of hesitant to give their age. I don't know if it’s due to the sense that there is still an expectancy on women to achieve certain things by a certain age.”

“Yeah, but bollocks to that,” Amaliah says.

“Yeah, no,” I clamour, “of course. I completely agree.”

“I know,” Amaliah says, reassuringly. “People always think that I'm younger than I am.”

“In your life, how prone have you been to recreating yourself?” I ask. “Say, from that 16-year-old girl that was in Ireland 12 years ago, ‘til now. Have you been through many different phases, aesthetically?”

“Yeah, big time,” Amaliah says. “I'm a Gemini.”

I laugh.

“So, it ebbs and flows. All different types of personalities apparently,” Amaliah giggles. “But, yeah, I always go through different phases. Though, I've always kept some sort of aesthetic that is very me and has been me since I was a teenager, but it always changes a little bit as time goes on. Even in personality. I think it just comes with age. I'm a lot more sure of myself now, even versus me three years ago. I'm bit more settled in myself now. But, yeah, I think it's just part of life. You go through different chapters. Constantly changing and growing. I keep saying to myself, I'm in my Villain Era now,” Amaliah laughs, ensuring that I don’t take her completely seriously.

I chuckle. “What exactly does that constitute? For you anyway?”

“I dunno. Being a bit more badass maybe,” Amaliah laughs.

“What villain would you be?”

“What villain would I be? Hmmm.”

“Or what kind of energy do you wanna bring to the table?”

“Maybe Maleficent. She's pretty badass.”

I nod in agreement.

“She's quite cool. But, she also maybe has a soft side. Who knows?”

“Would much the same be said about yourself?”

“Maybe. Maybe that is what I'm saying about myself,” Amaliah says. “Self-reflective.”

“And you're saying you're a lot more confident in yourself now.”

“Yeah. When I went to uni, it definitely helped. Before uni, when I went to school, I was quite shy, quite — not wallflower-y, that's probably an exaggeration — but I just kinda kept to myself and I can still be like that sometimes with people that I don't know. I worry that people often think I'm a bitch, but I just don't know what to do when I meet people,” Amaliah laughs.

I laugh. “No, fair. It would be funny if people got the wrong impression of you and then saw your Instagram — going through your Villain Era — and they thought, Oh, maybe she is that bitch.”

“Maybe she is a bitch, actually.”

We both cackle.

The rain intensifies again and pelts the skylight. Or maybe it sounds worse than it actually is.

“How important is it to you,” I say, “not to be seen as an ambassador, but to present yourself as a guiding light for women?”

“Really important to me, yeah,” Amaliah says. “I'm trying to not shout out about it because I want it to just become the norm, where women are everywhere and women are equated the same to men in the industry without it having to be shouted out. All female line-up. All female compilation. Things like that.”

“Of course.”

“And I think with producing especially, I just really wish there were more women producing. I think there are, but the confidence I think, sometimes, isn't there. I know loads of women who DJ who are working on music, but they're not releasing them. I'm like, Guys, just do it. So, that's one of the things that I had in mind when I first released Borne Fruits 001 last year. I was like, I'm just gonna do it, because there's not enough women doing this and I kinda wanna show that you can and kinda represent the girls as well. And yeah — it's really important to me.”

“Fair.” I stop. “Sorry, I've lost my train of thought.”

Amaliah smiles. ”That's alright.”

There’s a considerable pause. “No, it's gone. It's gone. It's completely gone.”

“I hate it when that happens. I get that sometimes. It goes whoop,” Amaliah says, gesturing with her hand the thought leaving her brain.

“It's the brain fog. It's the brain fog.” There’s another considerable pause. “Oh, yeah, sorry, I got it. What's the recurring feedback from girls on why they're hesitant to release?”

“Ehhhhhmmm,” Amaliah says, drawing out her thought. “I haven't really had any direct feedback. I think it's more just an undertone of it still being a boy's game.”

“I think it would be remiss of me to not bring it back then to your mother,” I say.

There’s a small hum of agreement from Amaliah.

“What kind of principles did she instill in you when you were younger growing up and are they the same principles that you're trying to instill in the younger generation now as well?”

“Yeah, I think so. She's always taught me to not second-guess myself and she is my sounding board in most of the things that I do, especially musically. She's just always said to me, You can do it. She's never been like, Oh, are you sure about that?”

“In whatever it is?”

“Yeah — Well.” Amaliah rethinks.

“There's a few times —”

“There's things where she's like, Don't do that.”

We both laugh.

“But,” Amaliah continues, “anything that she can see I'm passionate about or she thinks it could work, she’s just like, Just go for it.”

“Fair. This could be multifaceted, but what do you consider more important,” I say, “the people or the space?”

“In terms of what?”

“Well, that's what I'm saying. Whether it be music and clubbing or what you surround yourself with in everyday life.”

“The people,” Amaliah says.

“The people,” I echo.

“Yeah,” Amaliah confirms.

“Always the people?”

“I think so,” says Amaliah, before stalling for a few moments.

“It's not a trick question,” I assure her.

“I think the people, yeah. There's been nights where I've been to the same space twice and there's been two completely separate vibes, based off of the people. So, I would say the people make it.”

We both stand and walk to the entrance of the hotel. Amaliah says goodbye and braces herself as she walks into the pouring rain and over Ha’penny Bridge.