On the Rise
Miraa May

“When it comes to people listening to your music, they feel like they know you and they almost become your friends rather than your fans,” Miraa May explains. “I like to look at them as friends rather than fans because I don't like the word ‘fan’ or ‘fanatic’. I prefer ‘supporters’ or ‘people that hear what I'm saying’, ‘people who agree with me’, more those kinds of words.”

The 23 year-old Algerian-born, Tottenham-raised May gives off an immediate electricity as she speaks. She articulates her thoughts quickly – sprinkling sentences with curse words and softening them with a charming N15 accent – chatting as if she’s known you for years. This vibrancy is palpable, even after a busy working day.

It’s her sense of self-confidence and quintessential London-ness that has seen May quickly build momentum and become one of the city’s most exciting new musicians. She speaks an impressive four languages – Algerian, French, Japanese and Arabic – while her style of music is hard to define, incorporating elements of pop, RnB and a smattering of garage, a perfect amalgamation that displays the diverse city which she grew up in. “Tottenham's where I'm from, it's part of who I am, and it's ultimately shaped my music,” she says. “It's a very tight-knit community, lots of support.”

May cites a number of different musical genres as shaping her identity. Having been born in Algeria and moved to the UK aged two, she has had many different phases which have influenced certain nuances to her sound. Her parents would exclusively play Algerian pop music, often known as Raï, around the house, which seems to have had an effect in terms of her unique vocals. “It's incorporated in the way that I sing… not so much the actual music itself,” she says. “I still have some time to explore that side I guess. I do want to work with Algerian music. It’s just a matter of timing.” Nevertheless, she has also been through those same Disney, emo and hip-hop experiences that many nineties kids would be able to relate too, mentioning Paramore, Jonas Brothers and Kendrick Lamar as others that she also grew up listening to.

Community is centrel to the work May creates. After getting her first exposure to music through youth projects in her local area – many of which have shut down now – she continues to collaborate with the same group of friends, and a manger she considers to be a sister. This is reflected her approach to writing. “I get really sad, and really angry, and have a lot of shit to take. I get frustrated from telling my best friend [about my feelings] all the time, because I don't wanna sound like a broken record” she says. “So, I go to the studio, put on the music and I chat to her about the song after, which effectively makes me chat about what I wanted to chat about in the first place. I literally didn't make my music for any other purpose than because I was actually upset.”

Somehow avoiding a sense of cliché, May describes songwriting as therapy, and often changes her tone from playful to acknowledging a need to empathise with people over shared experiences. “Sad” from Care Package, for example, was written while she and her producer were both feeling depressed. “Making music, that to me is a way to sit and cry with all my people,” she says. “I can't go to everyone individually and hold their hand and be like, 'Babe I got you' but I can do that with my music. That's the only thing that's really going to make me feel better. You can have money, you can have whatever... but my friends and my family are the ones that make me feel that pure sense of happiness.”

In turn, May’s songs also touch on positive messages of empowerment and self-confidence, something that her loved ones have installed in her. “To be honest, I think part of it is because I'm Algerian – we're a very proud people. Another part is me being Muslim – we're also a very proud people,” she says. “I also think, just as a woman, you have to be independent. You know, there's the whole conversation of where women are in our society, going into it is fucking long, but you know what I mean,” she sighs.

“We get treated like shit. I've been treated like shit a lot in my life. I'm tired of it, I'm sick of it” she continues. “There's not really much I can do. I can't reverse it, can't go back and get the people that treated me like shit. The only thing I can do is never let it happen again in the future, protect other people and make sure it doesn't happen to them either.”

Building this sense of empowerment in her music has been a gradual process, explains May, as she reflects on that first 2014 EP, The Beginning. “I think that was the beauty of it, it was a very innocent EP,” she says. “It was very raw and showed people I could write songs, I could sing, and I could play guitar. I think over the past couple of years, I’ve turned to showcasing more of my talents and a bit more of who I am.”

A trip to Miami a few years later for her second EP, N15 was also a pinnacle moment for May, as she travelled out there to work on the record with Salaam Remi, the mind behind Fugees’ The Score and Amy Winehouse’s Back to Black. “There were plaques everywhere from every artist imaginable, from Alicia Keys to Shabba Ranks. It was very, very daunting. I had imposter syndrome and I didn't even fucking realise - I was just crying the whole time,” she says. “I didn't think I could match up to that, so I think the most important thing I learnt out there was that I should never really doubt myself.”

Miraa describes each milestone in her discography so far as marking an important, transformative period in her life – even if those periods were sometimes painful. "I feel like with all my projects, they're just moments in time. I called my first project The Beginning because it literally was the beginning of my music career,” she says. “N15 was an ode to my hometown and it was the first time I’d ever left the country, been international and been in the States. It was a daunting experience, it was scary... I missed my boyfriend at the time, there was loads of stuff. This last one [Care Package] was about a different theme, getting over a depressing hurdle, getting over a breakup, feeling sad, feeling empowered and [talking about] consent. You can really see the growth of a young woman in these projects. I feel like it's not even necessarily just me, it's the growth of any young woman really.”

The next stage? An upcoming project touching on more impassioned themes. “My next EP is called Dark,” she discloses. “It's a very angry, talking-shit and fuck-you type energy because I haven't had that in a project before. I want to out that emotion. With the one after, I want it to go back to the beginning where it's stripped back and it's live and cute. Then hopefully an album after that.”

May is humble in her aspirations for the future. “I want a house, I want a car and then I'm pretty much set after,” she smiles. “Not asking for much. Anything else is extra, who cares? Just stability, that's definitely something I long for.” It doesn’t seem like a big ask, especially from someone who cherishes community as she does. Before we hang up, she slides in one quick callout that she insists makes the final copy. “Shout out all my immigrants – make sure you put that in there.”