Amaal didn’t realize she could pursue music until she was already doing it. The Somali-Canadian artist thought making music was an “unfathomable” career — a mere hobby, perhaps — but when she posted her first single, 2011’s “Words Revealed,” online “to share with my friends and family on Facebook,” as she recalls, others started paying attention.
“I was getting labels reaching out to me,” she continues. “It was such a shock to me that people were genuinely interested.”
But Amaal’s appeal is pretty easy to understand. Her voice is naturally expressive and can easily wrap itself around an R&B beat with ease, sharply swinging listeners around tight corners on an emotional rollercoaster you’ll want to return to again and again. With a strength like that, Amaal’s songwriting benefits from more personal deep-dives, but that’s admittedly been the “biggest challenge for most of my career.”
Early on, Amaal’s songwriting focused on her community, telling a more wide-angled narrative. But, “sharing those intimate day-to-day stories were a struggle till it hit me one day that I wasn’t being fully present in my music.” Her intimate experiences, in love and life in general, needed a platform. “I was dying to speak about those things and no longer wanted to filter myself.”
Her latest EP, 2019’s Black Dove, is perhaps her most emotionally daring; a bare portrait of love, heartbreak and all the complicated shades in between. “Once I started sharing those intimate feelings, it just all came rushing out of me,” she explains. “The process was scary, emotional and empowering all at the same time. Black Dove represents, to me, shattering those expectations that society or your upbringing has placed on you and stepping outside of those boundaries. I’m so proud I was able to do the work and have this project be the birth of my journey.”
And that journey is far from over: “I only wish to continue pushing myself outside of my comfort zone and making music that’s honest and most importantly without any fear.”