I’ll be blunt. I had become really good at creating things people wanted to see, not necessarily things I wanted to say or cared about saying. Music became the one place where I could finally tell the full truth and let go. Funny enough, if fashion taught me how to build worlds, music finally gave me something honest to put inside them.

Online/irl basically asked: do we want to be, or do we want to be seen? Ear Candy takes it one step further by questioning whether attention and intimacy are actually the same thing. They’re not, at all. It’s the first act of a much bigger emotional story about moving from performance towards honest, deep connection.

I’ll be very real. Most of the attention I was getting was based on maybe one percent of who I really am. I became really good at creating excitement around that version because people responded well to it, but I hadn’t allowed myself to let people know the other 99 percent. Like I say in the song, ‘I just know what works.’ That’s really what the song Ear Candy is about underneath all the flirty vibes.

Sometimes, it’s inspired by a bharatanatiyam piece and other times it’s simply a feeling. I built this track with Abhishek Singh of Lionoath Studioz, who also produced my EP, so we already had a shared creative language. For Ear Candy, the head-nodding groove came first, followed by the idea of layering subtle Indian textures where they felt right, like the opening ghungroo. I prefer leaning into feeling and instinct so it sounds natural rather than like forced fusion.

It’s definitely a sensual pop and R&B album, but emotionally it’s much deeper than it first lets on. The story follows a girl who’s always known how to be strong, high-functioning, fiercely independent and a little all over the place and is lear ning for the first time how to be soft. It’s inspired by the idea of Shiva and Shakti, not as opposites but as movement and stillness learning to exist in balance.

I used to feel this constant pressure to share my life and it wasn’t sustainable or fully honest. Now I’d rather build a world around the music and let people find themselves inside it. I’d rather one person know the real me than a hundred people know a version of me I created because it ‘worked.’

For most of my life, I subconsciously believed finding my voice meant becoming louder or more impressive. I even thought that was the path to being loved. Now I’ve realised it’s actually about becoming more honest, even if that honesty is quieter. I’ve also stopped trying to sing perfectly. I’m always working to improve, but I’d much rather make people feel something, even if it’s imperfect.

The next single is called Quirky and it’s probably the most fun I’ve ever had writing a song. I literally texted my friends asking, “what about Malvika is quirky?” If Ear Candy is about creating attention, Quirky is the first moment this girl realises she doesn’t have to perform perfection to connect with people or be appreciated.

Ear Candy is streaming on all audio platforms.

For more updates, join/follow our WhatsApp, Telegram and YouTube channels.