Mallika Vie asks "DUFA?"
Mallika Vie (pronounced like the letter V) is a Soul and R&B singer and producer who draws inspiration from Snoh Aalegra, Steve Lacy, and SiR. She graduated from Harvard with a love for quantitative sociology, and is ALMOST done with her music production degree from Berklee College of Music. With a vanguardist, stripped-down sound, Mallika Vie's 'DUFA?' is the highly cinematic R&B proposal you were waiting for this 2023. The song plays around with this gigantic space created from the deep, almost booming beat that only her elegant high-range vocals can inhabit. In a way, Mallika pulls you into the dark, chilling depths of her own emotional waters, her voice like the siren song you willingly surrender to. Debuting in 2020 with ‘Be Still For Me’, Mallika has slowly but steadily built a catallog of cutting edge Alt-R&B sounds leading the charge in the genre's most sleek incarnation..
'DUFA?' stands for "Do U Feel Ashamed?" and though lyrics touch upon heartbreak, they're more specifically about the kind of heartbreak you experience from a failed frenship than a failed romance.The song describes how a friendship can slowly turn into a one-sided relationship where one person is putting in all the care and love while the other shrugs off any and all responsibility.
"DUFA" is based upon real-life events, with Mallika saying: "I sat the best friend down and told them: "My expectations for someone who is my best friend are that they initiate contact once in a while. Like shoot me a text once a month or something. I'm always the one initiating contact with you." They were super apologetic, said all the right things, took ownership, convinced me that the friendship was important to them too, and promised to change. I was hopeful. I trusted them. Nothing changed. This cycle - having a conversation about my expectations, and them apologizing and promising to change, but not changing - went on for a couple more painful years. As a final thought, Mallika leaves us with the lesson that perhaps it's up to us to reach out to that friend we've not heard from in a while. Ask yourselves: "Have I done everything I should to sustain this friendship?" if the answer is yes, then perhaps you can identify with the song, and if the answer is no, then this song is aimed right at you. If I were to talk to that friend today, I'd ask them: "Do you feel ashamed?" ("DUFA?") because I sometimes wonder if they feel ashamed that they let me - someone who stood up for them in rooms that they weren't in, someone who loved them so dearly - slip away, all because they couldn't be bothered to put in the bare minimum effort. - Mallika Vie
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