FINDING THE PERFECT REGGAE HOOK AND SPREADING GOOD VIBES WITH KHALIA
After following her music for a while and hearing her latest track with Dre Island, Wild Fire, I was excited to chat to Jamaican born and London bred artist, Khalia. Whilst I was in a grey and moody London, Khalia spoke from Kingston - bringing some much needed sunshine to our interview.
Her journey is an interesting one, a highlight was when she met Reggae legend Shaggy in 2016, who was impressed with her talent and introduced her to the multi-Grammy award-winning Tony ‘CD’ Kelly, who she’s been working with ever since.
Khalia, your new song Wild Fire can put anyone in a good mood. Was that your intention when you first went into the studio?
“My intention is always to pay homage to music. In these difficult times, I believe that musicians are essential workers, because listening to music can completely change your mood.
“The hook that you’re hearing isn’t actually the original hook. I wrote and recorded the song 7 months ago, but we put it on the back-burner because the hook was not hooking! I later got a message to say Dre Island would be great for the hook, and when I heard his verse I knew he understood the assignment. He encapsulated everything from the verses into the phrase ‘Wild Fire’, which makes sense - music is like wildfire and that’s how we want the song and the love to spread. That’s how we got the name of the song!”
As a female in Reggae, do you ever feel like you have to put on a front, or be loudest in room to be heard?
“I feel blessed to be able to present how I wanna present, to look how I wanna look and sing what I wanna sing. It’s a male dominated world so you feel that you need to have your voice heard, but I’ve been lucky to be able to be myself, thank God.”
We know fashion and styling is important to you - when it comes to deciding how you want to come across visually in your music videos, do you leave this up to a team of people?
“I am the team of people! I’m the hair stylist, the stylist, I now have a makeup artist but previously I was doing my makeup and my nails. I wanted this video to be quite relaxed and chilled, to match the themes of the song and the music video with what I’m wearing. I do want to work with a stylist because I’m ultimately a musician, and someone else can bring ideas that I wouldn’t consider. For now though, I am the glam squad!”
Which musicians or tracks are you enjoying right now?
“I’ve been loving afrobeats recently, but when you put my playlist on you can’t expect to find a specific genre, because it’s gonna go from reggae to pop to rock to afrobeats - a complete mix! I’m currently enjoying songs a bit later than everyone else, like Sip by Joeboy, Hot Hot from Bree Runway, Better than Gold by Barrington Levy and MIA by Berwyn.”
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