Maeta is moving on ahead of official debut album.

R&B vocalist Maeta began posting songs on SoundCloud and Instagram while still a teenager before recording two well-received EPs, Do Not Disturb (2019) and Habits (2021). This summer she released her third, the thirteen-track When I Hear Your Name, supported by a headline tour of North America and Europe.

“Everybody thinks it’s an album, but it’s technically an EP,” she explains. “In my contract, we weren’t doing my debut album yet. We didn’t make it with that pressure.” Even so, she kept close control of every aspect of the record from the mixing (“It gives me anxiety, I get demo-itis!”) to the track listing. “I love to tell a story, I don’t want to just throw some songs together, so I’ll definitely be picky about that. We had a whole different sequencing for When I Hear Your Name but I changed it last minute. I always knew I wanted ‘Sexual Love’ to be first, so that was a given; ‘Through the Night’ was going to end it. We would go back and forth but I got my way, thank God!”

Maeta also vetoed the original photos for the artwork. “We had a whole day: glam makeup, hair, styling. We got it back and it just didn’t feel right.” In the end, a contact at the Virgin Islands tourist board invited them to shoot there so she flew out with just a photographer, doing her own hair and makeup instead. “It’s just crazy that we spent so much money and ended up doing a DIY thing that just felt more real. If things don’t feel right, and I’m not in love with it, I become psycho about it,” she confesses. “But it all worked out.”

Touring When I Hear Your Name, Maeta has suffered less from the “horrible stage fright” that plagued her early on, when she was opening for Jazmine Sullivan and H.E.R. “When nobody knows who you are, it’s always very uncomfortable and nerve-wracking,” she says. “But this tour was the first time I’ve ever had people singing my songs back to me. People were coming to my show so that made me so much more confident on stage. And now I honestly get excited to perform because I have real fans and it’s my show. It’s been refreshing to feel that way because I used to just shake for a month before a show. I used to think I’d never get over it.”

“I don’t want to be as emotional in the next one – well, I don’t want to be sad or angry about a man. I’m kind of over that”

— Maeta

Playing the new material at recent gigs has also given her the opportunity to see which ones are popular with the fans, even if they’re not always her favourites to perform. The studio version of “ASMR” relies heavily on autotune, she explains, making it hard to translate well to a live performance, especially as she likes to move around on stage. “It’s one of those songs that’s just more uncomfortable to perform, for me at least. But the audience was crazy for that. And every time I sing ‘Something Happens When I Hear Your Name’, everybody always sings along. But that one’s very tricky to perform live too because of the piano: I’ve got to guess when it’s about to come in, so that one’s kind of hard. But those are the two that people love.”

Another song that’s going down well with audiences is “Cool Cat”, a cover version of a little-known Queen track. “My A&R and I were just hanging out, and he played me that. I’d never heard that song before,” Maeta recalls. “I just fell in love instantly. Nobody realizes it’s a Queen song, and when they do they’re like, ‘What the hell?!’” The recorded version was taken to another level when Roc Nation labelmate DIXSON came on board as vocal producer. “It took a while to cut because he was not gonna let me not push myself vocally. I can be a little lazy sometimes but he really helped me get out of my own head, push myself and sing the high notes.”

She’s proud of what she’s achieved with When I Hear Your Name – “I listen back to the songs and I’m still happy with it” – while determined that its sequel will be even better. What will officially be Maeta’s debut album is going to bring a change of direction in terms of lyrics and mood. “I don’t want to be as emotional in the next one – well, I don’t want to be sad or angry about a man. I’m kind of over that – I’ve been doing that for my last few projects, and I’m just tired of talking about this man. I want it to be more about being in love, and just the feeling, the warmth and excitement, the butterflies of being in love. Feelgood music and fantasy music: I want more of that. But we’re only two songs in, so we’ve got to figure it out.”

She’s also started working with Pharrell Williams and, although those tracks are yet to be released, she hopes they’ll feature on the new album. “I think what I love the most about him is that you think he has a sound, but then you don’t because there’s so many secret gems that he’s done. He does have a little bit of a groove, everything I did with him was very groovy, and the beat was very interesting, the drums are always interesting. Very impressive – he wrote a song in 30 minutes, and asked for my opinion, which I’m never gonna give him because I don’t know!” In fact, she’s already used to collaborating with the best musicians around, having worked with the likes of Kaytranada, Skrillex and Thundercat, while When I Hear Your Name features Lucky Daye, Ty Dolla $ign, Free Nationals and James Fauntleroy, whom she previously partnered on 2020’s “Mistletoe” (soon to get a second outing on his new Christmas album, The Warmest Winter Ever). “I think my favourite part about making music is the collaborative part. I would be so bored if it was just me.”

When I Hear Your Name is available now.

Author: Rachel Goodyear