When we meet at the No. 1 Pery Square Hotel in Limerick, Denise Chaila is greeted by some familiar faces. She is warmly received by people whom, according to her, she has not seen for a long time, since she no longer walks around the city as often as before. “Home is everywhere now,” she says.
In truth, none of us have seen much of the Zambian-born, Limerick-raised artist lately. Her reticence stands in stark contrast to the start of the decade, when she was an obvious rising star in the Irish music scene and a ubiquitous figure in the music press and associated television shows. So what happened? Essentially, it was burnout and she felt the need to retreat from the public spotlight.
Now the 32-year-old singer is ready to reintroduce herself to the world – starting with shows in Cork and Limerick, and then releasing a new album in 2027.
“I thought about changing my name a few times before this release, but I don’t think I’ll do it because it’s more interesting to let the story continue to speak for itself,” says Chayla. “A big part of me was adventure, it was the wild places I found myself in over the last four years.” In the west of Ireland she explored and satisfied her curiosity. Instead of listening to people “scream” at her online, she says she would rather befriend a 70-year-old man in a cozy pub and chat for hours about history.
“It’s interesting to interact with local communities wherever you go and just fall in love with a country like that, otherwise things start to stagnate. I don’t want to play Russian roulette with Ryanair every time I feel like I need an adventure.”
Since her last mixtape four years ago, did not release music under her own name. Her breakthrough single Chaila, part of her first mixtape. was released in 2020 during Ireland’s first lockdown. In 2021 she won the RTÉ Choice Music Prize Album of the Year. The following year, she supported Ed Sheeran on his Irish tour and took part in the remix of his song. track.
Accustomed to performing in venues with a maximum capacity of 100 people, post-lockdown her career took off “beyond her comprehension”.
“To be honest, it was really psychedelic because the way people treated me and talked to me also changed overnight,” she recalls. “For a few years, I was very happy to just work without stopping because I felt like I was being carried forward by the momentum. I very quickly started to feel like I was putting myself on the treadmill of releasing music and performing.”
When she was eight, her family moved to Limerick after being subjected to racist abuse in their Dublin home. The abandonment of her music career was partly due to the wave of racial abuse she received on social media. Tired of it all, she eventually booked a flight to Mexico, where she reconnected with other people—and with herself.
“I don’t like to mention it because sometimes I’m afraid that saying the name will bring it into my life again, but I was receiving a very strong onslaught of racial slurs online that clouded my ability to access the people who love my music,” she recalls.
“At any moment the page would refresh and 30 new comments calling me slurs I’d never heard of before would fill my pages, my DMs and my comments. It was a very, very difficult experience.”
Some told her it was “part of the game.” “I was jealous of my peers who got the privilege to criticize for who they were and the music they made, rather than for something like their race, which they can’t control. It’s still me, connected to a history of inequality and enslavement.” Since she was last in the public eye, she also worked hard on her health. She said some experiences were “transformative” for her. Among them was breast reduction surgery. She recommends this procedure to other women who may benefit from it.
“Absolutely just do it and grit your teeth because I’ll never experience pain equivalent to the relief I felt when I stood up from the surgical bed and realized they had taken a kilo and a half out of my chest alone. Now I stand up straight, look people in the eye, and I’m not in that pain all the time. It’s amazing, it’s a miracle.”
Now in her early 30s, Chayla admits that she is “disillusioned with the world” and no longer has the same stars in her eyes. But she still has big dreams. “I think part of taking back my power is realizing that I make music to connect with people, not to run around madly or burn out trying to chase industry standards,” she says.
Next year’s album, as yet untitled, will sound “nothing like GO Bravely.” While she liked the younger version of herself, she wants to be more playful with her sound.
“There was a time when I worried that I was becoming a little like this weird cross between Michelle Obama and Megan Thee Stallion,” she says.
“I’m much more eccentric than the girl I see talking on The Late Late Show. I’m proud of her, I like her a lot, and she shows up in my life a lot. But the version of me that gets off the train and wanders into Joyce’s apartment to braid her hair and giggle before rehearsal is not the version of me that will show up when the cameras roll. I really want more room to act.”
Now Chayla is more interested in letting things go. As a musician, it’s hard for her not to think in terms of identifiers. “Some people just live their lives. Some people just wake up and say, ‘My name is Jim, next question.’ Meanwhile, I’m here talking to people about what this image is that we’re trying to convey,” she says. “You talk to the wrong people and they say, ‘Well, if you lose a little weight, we can market you like this. And if you gain a little weight, then of course it’s body positivity.’ It’s dark as hell, but sometimes there’s a pragmatism in the way conversations about who you are happen.”
She’s been on a few good dates recently. One cold November night she somehow found herself in a canoe near Lough Derg, in Mount Shannon, County Clare. “God, I’ve never been canoeing in my life and I was going crazy in that life jacket,” she laughs. “Once we were on the water everything was quiet. The moon was up and the water was glassy. The next day we repeated the experiment and just rowed and sang to each other around Lough Derg.”
She has found a happy place around the fires, armed with a guitar and surrounded by people she enjoys being with. “Suddenly the whole family and a few guests were around us, and we were up until 3 a.m.,” she says. “I think there’s romance in being caught up in someone’s life, not just them.”
Those hugs helped Chayla find community and personal peace, as well as that creative spark that led her to start making music again.
- Denise Chaila performs at Cyprus Avenue, Cork on Sunday 20 September; and at The Commercial in Limerick on September 26 as part of her An Seo tour.
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