Maya Delilah may have only just turned 20, but she’s already engineered a fresh, sunshiny, neo-soul glow that illuminates her songwriting - and gained around 120,000 TikTok followers through her guitar skills. Taking influence from guitar-hero John Mayer and R&B staple D’Angelo, Maya’s musicality is a mosaic of all things groovy. Her latest track ‘i’m just stupid’, out today, is the fourth track taken from her upcoming debut EP.
“It’s about that feeling of being fooled into thinking you are somebody's 'special someone' when they are really just stringing you along... That going back and forth feeling in your head - do I really like them? Do they really like me? Am I being played? AM I JUST BEING STUPID??”, Maya explains of the song. “I thought I'd write about it to get it out of my head and onto paper, but also to show others that they are not crazy to think these things, as, come on, we all do it…”
‘i’m just stupid’ is citrusy and mellow, with a Bossa-swing swagger courtesy of its acoustics. It carries the same cheek and charm as an Easy Life song, with unabashed accent slipping through, and a buttery vocal throughout - cutting away for telephone ad-libs now and then. Towards the song’s ending, it glides into a bluesy guitar solo that succeeds in its storytelling as the lyrics do.
‘i'm just stupid’ follows the release of ‘Safe’, Maya’s charity track that showed how the current pandemic is, in some ways, allowing us to feel more connected. All proceeds for ‘Safe’ are going to University College London Hospitals. Also on the EP are, ‘Tangerine Dream’, ‘Gato’ and ‘U R U’, with a combined 685K streams, Maya already has an impressive following before her debut, due for release at the end of June. It promises to be a soul inspired record with pop twists, making for an emotional but upbeat summer soundtrack.
