Mahalia is gearing up for something, following a string of singles, including “Simon Says” and “Letter To Ur Ex,” the singer returns once more with “In the Club.” Mahalia hasn’t released an album since 2019’s breakthrough Love & Compromise, although she did deliver a quarantine-friendly EP, Isolation Tapes in May 2020.
“In the Club” is inevitably nostalgic, thanks not only to Mahalia’s interpolation of 50 Cent‘s iconic 2003 hit “In Da Club,” but the laid-back, simplicity of the acoustic guitar. Mahalia flips 50 Cent’s hook into an “I choose me” break-up anthem, singing, “I’m into making friends, I ain’t into making up / You can take your hugs, you can take it / But don’t come find me in the club, bottle full of bub / Look, baby, you made a mess again, it can’t be undone / I’m into making M’s, I ain’t into making up / You can take your hugs, you can take your love.”
Mahalia released a statement on the new record in a press release, saying,”‘In the club’ is a song about letting go of people who are just plain and simply bad for you. I grew up in a small town in Leicester and most people didn’t believe that I could make it as an artist. I had a super small group of friends and a lot of people weren’t really ever interested in talking to me or being friends with me and mine… until I started doing well. I’d come home for Christmas and people would start acting like we’d been friends forever. They’d ask about London and my life as if we’d been close since kids. I always found that very bizarre. As a person who has never measured someone’s likability by their success, I always hated that type of behaviour and so wanted to write about it. It also applied to people I met later in life. Who only stuck around for the good bits and left for the bad.”
Check out Mahalia and her friends taking over a London cab in the music video for “In the Club” below.
Quotable Lyrics
You can’t pick and choose when you’re on my side
Leave through the lows and try stay for the highs
Love to the people who are steady in my life
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