The pop landscape is ever-changing: what is hot one year will fade away the next (remember our brief but blazing love affair with Shania Twain in ’99?). But some people grab and hold attention, because they’re unlike anything else on the horizon. Over the last two years, Laura Mvula has done that for me.
I first saw Mvula, now 29, when a friend excitedly pressed play on the video for her soulful single, Green Garden. I was blown away: here was a short-haired, dark-skinned black girl, dancing with other black girls of varying hues, in a sun-dappled meadow, the epitome of #BlackGirlMagic. Her voice sounds the way mahogany looks: too good for your undeserving hands, darkly textured in a way you might not be used to, utterly decadent. Mvula’s specialty is harmonies, and deeply evocative lyrics. When she sings, “Taking my shoes off/Walk on a carpet of green velvet”, you feel the fabric underfoot.
It’s no surprise to learn that she studied composition at the Birmingham Conservatoire (you can barely hear the Brummie in her singing voice, though). Before fame, she worked as a music teacher, which is perfect, because I feel I’ve learned something every time I watch her. There are echoes of Nina Simone, but it’s also all Laura.
Mvula’s lyrics implore you to grab life, to speak out, to exist without regrets. And she is queen of the striking visual (see the That’s Alright video and her recent appearance on Graham Norton, all feathers and supple movement). She looks and sounds like magic, and that’s in short supply these days. Let’s drink our fill.
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