Healing will always be part of the agenda for soul artist DemiMa. As a multi-hyphenate creative she moves from songwriting to soulfully singing while tapping into her spiritual side as a yogi.

With the first of a two-part EP Duality Pt. 1: Chaos, released this past Friday, DemiMa’s work is an alt R&B fan’s fantasy. In eight tracks, she gives us a glimpse of a woman balancing opposites: whether it’s writing through peace alongside the world’s chaos. Singing in English alongside her melodic mother tongue Zulu. Or navigating Durban and London as the tale of the two cities she was raised in.

It feels almost serendipitous that my first experience of DemiMa onstage was at an Afro Diaspora Connection event by The Dig this past May. Called onstage to lead vocals for music duo Blue Lab Beats, like everyone in the audience, I felt a pull towards that voice. She’s the kind of person who exudes the aura of an artist without even trying. Captivated by her performance then, I felt excited to get on our Zoom, taking a deeper dive into the woman behind the music.

Not just anyone can say their first memories were from the womb. “People probably won’t believe me but my mother played music and I still relate to being soothed by muffled sounds that were harmonic.” For DemiMa, it felt like her intro to vibration and sound so it’s not surprising that several years later, the mood of her music is incredibly soothing as well. With a soundscape that feels from outer space, her EP floats from one track to another as she invites you into her chaos. 

Coming from a musical family, her first memories out of the womb were at two, listening to her grandfather, Bheki Mseleku’s Celebration album with earphones that were too big for her baby ears. As a 90s R&B girly who was equally excited by pop, it meant fangirling over Spice Girls and Toni Braxton at the same time. While the singing came first, doing cover’s of other people’s songs, the writing part came much later as she navigated adolescence between South Africa and the United Kingdom. With a strong upbringing, the artist embraced her identity, learning the importance of knowing your roots from a young age. 

Learning Zulu helped her navigate life in Kwa-Zulu Natal without ever feeling like othered for being bi-continental. The experience across the pond was a little different. Living in a white area in the UK with an accent that was different to theirs was a jarring experience. She recalls how the response she got to being from South Africa felt like ‘ah shame, she’s from Africa, she must be suffering somehow’. It’s no secret that the perception the Western world has about what Africa is really like is still not on par with our experience as people who reside here. It’s often blanketed as if it’s a singular country and not a continent filled with 52 of them, each with beautiful people and their own politics. The ‘shame’ portrayed for them was different from the childhood she actually experienced. 

“Highlights of my childhood were based in Durban. I remember driving to the beach on weekends, listening to music, braai-ing and having the best time. 

It makes it quite frustrating coming back [to the UK] having this misperception of what Africa is, not really being able to express the beauty and how magical and non-struggling it can be. Even if we’re struggling, there’s still vibes. Amapiano is a great example of that, nomakanjani (no matter what), we’ll catch a vibe.” 

One thing she is grateful for about growing up in London is living alongside people from the diaspora. That close access to Ghanaian culture and Jamaican culture meant she grew up listening to all kinds of sounds. From her gran it moved from classical to jazz to soul music, “It was like Anita Baker one day, Tchaikovsky one day and  John Coltrane on another,” she explained. In London it was R&B and the hip-hop greats 2Pac, Biggie and later grime but being home meant she was exposed to African textures she heard through artists like Busi Mhlongo and Bongo Maffin. As much as she had CDs and watched TV from overseas, maskandi and mbaqanga influenced her ear too. School exposed her to indie artists like Radiohead and alternative sounds that allowed her to develop a vast ear. Together these influences are embedded in her music today. 

For DemiMa, being a creative has an additional layer since she’s on the spectrum of neurodivergence. She had to learn how to respond to heightened emotions from a young age since fainting spells would be a result of her excitement or fear.

“My mind would switch off and say ‘this is too much’ so I had to navigate being protective of my own mental well being. It’s how I got into yoga.” When she’s not in the studio, DemiMa has been practising yoga for 15 years, leading as an instructor for five, “I got obsessed with yoga because it helped me navigate parts of my mind and manage emotions through breath work, mindfulness and being present, giving me tools to process without embarrassing myself.” Learning how to use those tools to get onstage with less anxiety made all the difference.

Leading the charge to make the ancient practice of yoga more melanated, the desire to heal people spills into all of her creative assets. “I knew there were other people who could relate to my experience. I wanted to find my tribe in wellness and contribute, assisting people who have those situations.” In today’s climate with news headlines of new cabinets, genocides and all kinds of injustice, finding pockets of peace through a focus on mental wellness is more important than ever. Knowing her moods can go from excited to super low, she’s used music to open up about the duality in flowing between the two states.

“The more we’re honest about how we process mentally, the more we can hold space for each other and support one another. If we’re always presenting being ‘fine’ instead of being honest and saying ‘yazini (you know what), I’m not fine’, we won’t let people assist and uplift us.” All the healing comes through in the music. With her first single Sondela released in 2018, produced by Emmavie, her previous album Alt. Frqnc came out in 2019 so life and the pandemic has given her time to refocus.

“I’ve been trying to understand music in terms of frequency and vibration. There’s so much power and the music industry knows the science of that. A hook is called a hook for a reason. If it’s catchy or a nursery rhythm-ish that can be great but at the same time, what are we repeating? What’s the mantra? What’s the message we’re connecting with? Knowing that music has so much power, how can we use the science in the melody to impact mass consciousness in a positive way? Why not use it for healing?” 

Knowing bass affects your lower chakras and higher frequency affects upper chakras and learning how to use the knowledge consciously is what she’s working on for Duality Pt. 2 : Peace - specifically mixed in 432Hz for deep relaxation, whether you’re calming your nervous system or helping with insomnia. In Duality Pt.1 Chaos, you roll into that meditative feeling with the rhythmic bass lines. This EP is for anyone who feels swallowed by life’s ups and downs. Anyone who feels overwhelmed. Using nature and the elements as metaphor, DemiMa calls on whoever’s listening to manifest a paradise of their own, to create a safe haven amidst all the chaos. With nods to the soul music she grew up on, the vocal stacking feels lush and if you’re someone who appreciates a good bridge, she has that too. 

As for what’s in a name, Duality Pt. 1: Chaos as a title made DemiMa think of the two extremes of her own neurodivergence. “I wanted to capture that. I’m anti using the idea of darkness and light, saying darkness is negative and light is positive. Light can blind you or burn you in the wrong context.

For me it’s observing the two ideas of how there’s beauty in chaos and in peace. We can’t celebrate peace only, as if we aren’t living in chaotic times.

We’re not in Eden skipping through flowers, today there’s so much coming at us all the time and I had to acknowledge the crazy chaos.” DemiMa is doing that through her visuals just as much as her music. Bringing vulnerability through her lyrics, her latest video Be Alone is an intimate look at the internal war of wanting love and someone to hold but struggling to make room for love to grow into what it needs to be. In a bed of beautiful blue hues, the last minute outro even teases Let Love Be, a soothing ballad from the upcoming Duality Pt. 2: Peace.

“Even in all the madness, we can control how we respond,” DemiMa said in closing. I couldn’t help but agree at the reminder to also find peace wherever I can, using music like hers to make me feel seen and heal my spirit along the way. Duality Pt. 1: Chaos is available for your ears everywhere you stream music.