Independent Woman: Hot Press meets Sam Mumba

Rumours of Samantha Mumba’s ‘retirement’ from the music industry have been greatly exaggerated. Indeed, according to the woman herself, they were totally fabricated to begin with.

“I actually never ever said I’d retired from music!” the affable Dubliner protests. “I’ve been asked about that before a couple of times, so the quote is definitely out there. So somebody said it. It just wasn’t me.”

A guest appearance on The Hit last year aside, Mumba has largely been off the national radar. Now, however, the 31-year-old one-time starlet is set to release a new single, ‘Only Just Begun’. It coincides with a short Irish comeback tour. She laughs down the line from her Los Angeles home.

“I definitely did take a break from music,” she says, “but I certainly never made a public statement. I would never do that. Like anything, you go through phases. Singing is something I’ve always done and will always do. I just wasn’t actively doing it for a while.”

She married an American policeman a couple of years ago, but denies this was the reason for her career break. “To be honest, I just wasn’t very inspired,” she admits. “Just in the last year or so, I started writing again. I suppose I got excited by it. The new single is actually very different to the rest of the album. I wanted to put together a collection I’m proud of – what it does from there on is out of my hands. As long as it’s something I can stand behind and feel good about, I’ll be happy.”

A high energy pop ballad, ‘Only Just Begun’ was produced by Justin Gray, who’s helmed releases by Mariah Carey, Nicki Minaj, John Legend and Joss Stone.

“Justin is amazing,” she enthuses. “We work really, really well together. I love his vision, he’s fun to collaborate with. He’s a talented guy. It’s kind of hard to find people like that. I’m shy when it comes to writing. But I’m very comfortable around him.”

Gray isn’t the only producer toiling over Mumba’s forthcoming album, which she’s planning to release independently. “We’ve booked a few different people,” she explains. “Justin will definitely be doing a few more songs. Brian Malouf is doing a lot of stuff as well. It is wonderful to work with really great people, which is rare when you’re doing it independently – without the major labels to make those big connections for you.”

She’s been based in LA for the last eight years. “A lot of people thought I moved here for work. I actually like the lifestyle. I’m not in Hollywood or anything. It’s a nice, normal neighbourhood. My main role here is: I’m a wife and a stepmother. Very normal. It’s a lovely quality of life. And it’s great because there’s a lot of producers. It’s a totally different world.”

A graduate of Dublin’s Billy Barry Stage School, Mumba was only a teenager when she was snapped up by pop impresario Louis Walsh and signed to Polydor. Her debut album, Gotta Tell You, sold in excess of 4.5 million copies worldwide and earned her a Grammy nomination. However, a few dodgy career moves, including some rather ill-judged movie roles (The Time Machine anyone?), almost saw the beautiful young star consigned to the overflowing dustbin of pop history.

On the opening verse of ‘Only Just Begun’ she sings, “This is a song to the five-year-old me/ Little girl weren’t you so pretty?.... So sure of what your life would be/ Yeah, you came and you saw/ And broke down the wall/ Yeah, you came and you saw/ And you lost it all.”

“I wrote the song myself. I think it’s an idea that anybody could relate to,” she says. “If you could genuinely visualise a little five-year- old version of yourself, what would you say to yourself? What promises would you make to yourself?”

So what advice would she give to the teenage pop sensation she used to be? “Honestly,” she laughs, “if I was to go back to the very beginning of my career to give myself advice – I was a teenager so I don’t think I would have listened to any of it! Life is just one of those things where you have to go through it all, and figure it out for yourself as you go along.”

Her professional relationship with Louis Walsh ended soon after the release of her debut album. Is she still in touch with him? “I haven’t talked to Louis in years,” she confides. “So no. I’m so out of the loop. It’s only when I’m doing interviews back home that people ask me about him. I know he’s on a few TV shows in the UK, isn’t he? I never watch any of those programmes, so I don’t really know any more than that.”

Following a lengthy absence, she was last seen on Irish screens when she appeared on RTÉ’s The Hit. On the back of the series, her song, ‘Somebody Like Me’, reached No.5 in the national singles charts.

“It was amazing,” she recalls. “I’ve been asked to do so many reality shows over the years. I turned most of them down, but Vision [the makers of The Hit] are really such a lovely production company. I adore the concept. It’s reality TV done right. Songwriting is such an important part, the most important part of the business. It was brilliant. I loved it.”

Why is she wary of other reality TV shows? “I don’t like doing something unless I genuinely warm to the concept. I like to watch reality stuff but don’t necessarily want to be a part of it. It really was great to highlight that there are a lot of talented songwriters. Ireland, in particular, has a lot of talent. I thought it was cool, I liked the idea – that it was all about the music and not about trying to create drama.”

While she has largely avoided reality TV, she hasn’t abandoned her acting ambitions. Her latest film Home, in which she co-stars with Heather Langenkamp, is set for release early this year.

“Home was a very different kind of project,” she explains. “It’s an independent film. They wanted it to be authentic. So we didn’t have a typical structure, didn’t have a set script. There was a lot of ad-libbing. A lot of just ‘going with it’, which was very different for me. It was fun to work on, and it was local out here, which was great. They’re just finishing the edit. I still haven’t seen it. I’m really looking forward to discovering how it turns out!”

In the meantime, she’s about to begin rehearsals for a short February tour of Ireland to promote the new single. Strangely, she’s never actually toured her homeland before.

“Honestly, the only places I’ve ever toured are the UK and America,” she says. “I’ve never done an actual tour in Ireland. I’ve done one-off shows in Dublin. But I’ve never even done concerts, or gigs at all, down the country. I’m getting a kick out of that. When I was younger it was all about just doing the press and photo shoots.

“It was rare that I would actually get to perform or sing live. So that’s what’s nice about these gigs. They’re small, they’re intimate. I’m getting a great young band together that are really good musicians. So hopefully we’ll get to re-work some of my old stuff and try out some of my new material, and see how it turns out.”
Interesting times ahead...

‘Only Just Begun’ will be released on iTunes on February 21. Samantha plays The Village, Dublin (20); Monroe’s Galway (21) and Kremlin, Belfast (22).