Malvika (Sheth), who recently released her single ICONIC, has now unveiled her highly anticipated EP Online/irl.
The project opens with the atmospheric intro track Be or Be Seen, instantly setting the mood for what follows. Born and raised in Los Angeles with Indian roots, Malvika has always existed between cultures, aesthetics and expectations. She first built her name through fashion and social media, growing a global community of over 200,000 followers and clocking up hundreds of millions of views. Technology wasn’t just a tool, it was the backdrop to her entire coming-of-age, opening doors while quietly shaping who she felt she had to be.
“I grew up online. I genuinely love technology, those platforms gave me a career,” she says. “But somewhere along the way, visibility stopped feeling like expression and started feeling like obligation. I realised I was making choices based on what travelled faster, not what felt true. Online/irl came from that reckoning; the moment I understood that staying visible was costing me authorship, and that returning to myself would require choosing presence, even when it meant being seen less.”
The opening track, Be or Be Seen?, lays out the EP’s central dilemma-are you living, or are you performing? “It’s the inner dialogue I had when I realised that visibility for visibility’s sake was diluting my purpose as a creative. I kept asking myself whether I wanted to continue doing what made me more visible, or allow myself to express from truth and simply be.”
From there, each track feels like a chapter in that self-audit. Love Is a Game dives into blurred lines, mixed signals and the all-too-relatable spiral of losing yourself in someone else. High Note unpacks the pressure to achieve, especially within an immigrant household where success can feel like survival. Spiralling captures burnout in real time- the pressure, the constant output, the quiet unravel. The EP closes with ICONIC, inspired by time spent around Paris Fashion Week, a full-circle moment that chooses self-belief over chasing validation.
Sonically, this isn’t a random pivot. As a third-generation Bharatanatyam dancer, Malvika grew up understanding storytelling through rhythm, structure and emotional precision. Later, working as a university writing consultant sharpened her narrative instincts even further. The result was a seamless blend of pop, R&B and hip-hop layered with Indian instrumentation and storytelling traditions, which was global, but grounded.
With Online/irl, Malvika isn’t telling anyone to log off. She’s asking a more nuanced question about how do we exist online without losing ourselves in the process? This isn’t about reinvention. It’s about reclamation.
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