FEATURE: Spotlight: Maya Blandy — Music Musings & Such

FEATURE:

Spotlight

Maya Blandy

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IT is not always possible…

to find recent interviews with artists that I spotlight. As is the case with Maya Blandy. Though I really want to include her, so I am going back a couple of years to some interviews there. It would be nice if there were publications chatting with Blandy. This Madeira-born artist resides in Manchester. She has this voice and style that I think is so different to anything else. And yet you can identify with the music and get a lot from it. Her new single, I Don’t Need, highlights just what a talent she is. It is vital that everyone go and listen to the amazing Maya Blandy. Someone we will hear a lot more from. I am actually not sure whether she is still in Manchester or has relocated to London. I am going by 2024 interviews, so circumstances may have changed since then. Let’s get to a couple of 2024 chats with this Portuguese queen. An artist I think is going to headlines major festivals in years to come, such is her stage presence and brilliance. I Love Manchester spoke with Maya Blandy in 2024. Her then-new single B.I.B. was accusing a lot of love and discussion:

“Could you tell us about your journey and what led you to living in Manchester today?

My family is a mix from all over the place but primarily English and Australian- however I was bought up on the small Portuguese island of Madeira.

I’ve always loved music and had a very musical family- my dads a DJ and my mum dances so I was always surrounded by music.

Portuguese culture is very festive, they love their parties, their music, they love going out and enjoying everything and I think all of those elements fed into me growing a love for music over the years.

I then studied piano and when I eventually turned eighteen decided I want to do this for life.

My parents were like “You need to get out of Portugal- it’s not the place where things are happening!”

So I applied and got into University of Manchester.

I’d never even thought about leaving home because I loved it and it scared me to leave but eventually everyone agreed Manchester was such a vibrant city and a melting pot of different cultures that it will feed my experience.

At first it was definitely hard, I had no element from home so I had to really get integrated or I’d end up sitting at home alone making myself depressed.

I think it worked out the way it had to, day by day and I got to go to all these jams and concerts and see just how talented people are.

All these people that I meet can have so many different opinions on things but when it comes to music- everyone can get along and everyone can find their comfort zone and peace of mind.

My dad used to be in the music scene and he had a friend called Jake Wherry who was producing.

Went down to London to work on some tracks that sounded really cool- experimenting with different sounds like disco.

We started to build on that and have created track after track that we’re starting to release.

Who are some of your biggest inspirations?

It’s so all over the place. It ranges from Brazilian singers and guitarists- recognising the samba and feeling.

Lady Gaga is another one- twelve year old me would carry around cans in my hair!

Donna Summer, Nile Rodgers and The Jackson Five. Even David Bowie, Beyoncé- there’s a bit of everything really!

How do you want listeners to respond to your music?

I feel like people find artists that have a consistent sound and that’s the sound they expect all the time from them.

I don’t that’s very fair- I’m not going to be the same person always- it’s going to change and shift so I hope when people listen they full embrace the experience in terms of the lyrics, instruments, flow- and I hope they can relate to it.

It can remind them they’re human.

What are some of your favourite things about Manchester after living here for the last three years?

At first it was very cold, but that’s almost the beauty of it. Once you get to know it well there’s just so much happening. At first it seemed scary just from coming from a small island- but there’s so much culture, the music scene is amazing every weekend.

A classical concert, a jazz superstar, a string quartet all the at the same time. It’s a big city- but small enough to grasp.

And the food is amazing- I can always get good food!

I love Fletcher Moss Park- I used to work near there I’d sit and lie down in the sun every morning.

I love how many second hand shops there are too”.

I do feel that there should be more column inches about the remarkable Maya Blandy. Too good to be under the radar and reserved to a few interviews, I would love to see many of the biggest music publications here in the U.K. spend some time with an artist born in Australia, raised in Portugal, and now based in the U.K. Her music infuses different genres and colours to create this incredible and heady cocktail. I will leave with a feature from 2024, this one from Nordic Music Central, who also published around the release of B.I.B. Now, as she has new music out and is pushing ahead, time to connect with this distinct and truly original artist who is a major force:

“I have to hand it to Maya Blandy; she’s got the gift of the gab that I thought belonged in Blarney Castle. When she wrote to me asking for an interview and I wrote back that we are mainly a Nordic music site so she came straight back at me with “I am based in the north tho! I’m in Manchester – studied and am living in Manchester city so I am a Nordic artist ahah.”

Precious. And she won the argument.

She is a Portuguese/British singer-songwriter (Portugal being an honorary Nordic country for tonight at least) currently working on her first album, ‘Stardust’ with Jake Wherry, the founding member of the hip hop pioneer band the Herbaliser. She says the album is a fusion of jazz and 70s disco and soul and her influences run to The Emotions, Dusty Springfield and Donny Hathaway, as well more modern RnB such as Erykah Badhu and Cleo Sol.

She adds that “being a beginning independent artist is never easy ahah.” So many Nordics will know that too. Even A-ha had to start right at the bottom, Maya. Ahah.

‘B.I.B.’ is her third single and the most recent. It came out in November last year and as I’ve pointed out before we usually don’t go that far back but as there is a forthcoming album in the offing I’ll make an exception.

‘B.I.B.’ (‘Bitch In Black’) started life with the beat written for a rapper and inspired by early 90’s ‘Golden Era’ Hip-Hop and with that beat underpinning 1930s style jazz music, to which Maya added her own melodies and lyrics.

It represents “the dysfunctional dynamics of a woman madly in love, willing to do anything to have that love reciprocated.” I say, old girl, steady on. A sort of reverse Madeira Jane Eyre and Mr Rochester.

Another reason for making an exception for Maya is that this is a bloody good song. Dark, moody, sexy, a bit dirty. And that’s just the opening bars. Not to mention lines like “I shall hunt you down/Beware my baby/The bitch is back in town.”

We don’t really get that sort of thing from our play-it-carefully, don’t upset anyone, home-grown songwriters these days and we haven’t done, in this style at least, since the days of Shirley Bassey and latterly Amy Winehouse. Indeed Maya does have a flavour of Camden’s finest in that vocal, one that is augmented by the same horn flourishes that Winehouse employed, and courtesy here of Trevor Mires (trombone) and Ryan Quigley (trumpet).

It’s that Latin temperament what does it. It just oozes out of her.

I can’t help thinking this could be a Bond song. For a reprise of Casino Royale perhaps.

And I thought the Portuguese only did Fado.

It occurred to me that Maya is a little fair skinned for a Portuguese lady but it turns out that she was born in Australia and then raised in Madeira which she seems to share as a home with Manchester. Chalk and cheese or what?

And she’s part German, to boot”.

This is someone who I wanted to include on my site. Despite the fact there are very few interviews with her and nothing in 2026, that hopefully will change as her music reaches more and more people. Whatever the rest of this year holds for her, I would urge people to go and check out her music and see her live if she is ever playing near you. The captivating Maya Blandy is…