Malia J chatted with Digital Journal’s Markos Papadatos about her version of Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” which was featured in the film “Black Widow.”
On her inspiration to cover this Nirvana classic, she said, “I am constantly experimenting in the studio with the producers at Think Up Anger. One day we were hanging in the studio and the subject of Nirvana came up. We thought how great would it be to put our own dark spin on it?”
The fact that her song was featured in the movie “Black Widow” was a “surreal” feeling for Malia J. “I keep thinking, I’m dreaming,” she exclaimed.
Regarding her music and songwriting inspirations, she said, “Heartbreak, love, my struggle with anxiety, relationships, and situations that don’t work out. I am generally a happy soul to the people around me, but my music is a release of intense emotion and whatever I am going through at the moment.”
On being an artist in the digital age, she said, “I feel so lucky and excited to be an artist at this time. First of all, I get to connect and check in with my fans every day on my social media. I love reading their comments, watching their Tik Toks, and hearing how they are personally connecting with my music. It brings me so much positivity and makes me want to create and share even more music. It’s incredible that an indie artist like myself can release music on their own and virtually anyone in the world can stream it. Listeners can make things go viral, our generation has a lot of power at their fingertips.”
“I also like going on Spotify and seeing how many people are listening to my music at that very moment. It always brings a smile to my face,” she added.
Regarding her future plans, she said, “I will be playing a Livestream with Amazon on Aug 10 at 2 pm PST. It’ll be my first performance since the official release of my cover of Smells Like Teen Spirit. I can’t wait! I will also be releasing my EP Reflections along with a couple of music videos.”
On her dream duet choices, she said, “I would love to collaborate with Lana Del Rey, she is my biggest inspiration. James Blake has the most incredible voice, it would be a dream to write and record a song with him. I also think it would be cool to perform my China Doll cover with Dead and Company because I am a Dead Head. There are so many musicians I want to collaborate with… but I’ll stop there!”
She defined the word success as follows: “As an artist, success to me, means being able to sing, create, and perform my music all over the world for the rest of my life.”
Her version of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” is available on digital service providers by clicking here. “That I created this cover with love and respect for Nirvana. Nirvana’s estate approved of it and I believe that nothing will ever come close to the original,” she said.
