Since an early age, Salem Māhia has been an avid musician. Growing up in church, spending time jamming with his brother and friends, music has been a big part of his story, and continues to be. His talent has been showcased in various ways over the years, from performing at birthdays and weddings alongside his brother at just 14 years old, to competing at the Smokefree Rockquest, winning the solo/duo category in 2023, as well as being a 5 times finalist in the Play It Strange songwriting competition, finally winning the title in 2025. With an incredible 7 releases already under his belt before he hit adulthood, the future is looking bright for the young musician.
Being young comes with its share of assumptions, but Salem speaks with an eloquence and confidence of someone a few years older. “When you’re young, people just assume that you’d be immature. I guess people just assume that a young person just doesn’t really know what they’re talking about when it comes to a lot of different stuff. But, I feel like I’ve already done a lot in the industry, when it comes to competitions and performing, I guess it’s like, not letting my age dictate things.”
Salem was writing poems and stories before he became a musician, and it’s always been a part of his approach to writing music as well. “Some of my songs have had to do with my upbringing, and some have had to do with other things. I don’t think I have a specific thing that I write about. A lot of people have this process, and they’ll stick to it, but sometimes I’ll be just sitting in my car and driving home, and I’ll just think of a random word, or a random situation that’s happened to me, and I write it down in my notes. Sometimes, I’ll have an idea in my notes and I’ll come back to it in a few months when I’m stuck, and be like ‘I could write a song about that,’ if I have a chord progression or something.”
Experimenting with different musical genres over the years, from soul and pop to stripped-back acoustic tracks, Salem is somewhat of a chameleon. “I’ve always wanted to try a lot of different music, I love music so much. I want to try everything, I want to try every type of genre if I can. I’d love to make some jazz songs, because jazz is my favourite genre. I just want to keep experimenting, I’m not really searching for a particular sound. I’m just happy at the moment, especially like acoustic, stripped back. I guess as a musician, I’ve been known to just play with my guitar and say, just me and a guitar or me and a piano or whatever, that’s been my kind of music. And maybe eventually that’ll change into more of a fuller sound, or maybe it won’t. Since I’m young, I have so much time to experiment with my music, I feel like I’ve got a lot of options.”
When it comes to songwriting, Salem usually writes to guitar or piano, building the melody around the chords, changing things around to suit the natural development of the song. Sometimes however, Salem will find himself with a track being sent to him by a producer, where he finds himself having to change his approach. “It’s a completely different process, because I’m creating a melody to suit that [the provided song] and I can’t change it. Sometimes I can send suggestions, like ‘oh you could change this,’ but it’s a pretty different process. I feel like it’s a little but harder writing to music that you didn’t make.”
Despite being a young songwriter, Salem brings an emotional maturity to his songs, which he credits to some of his life experiences. “I guess my view on the world is slightly different to most songwriters. There are a lot of young songwriters, but I feel like my upbringing and the experiences that I’ve had has helped me to become more emotionally mature. I feel like I’ve had to grow up faster; I moved out of home early, when I first turned 17, and now I’m living by myself, still being 17.”
Salem’s current release, A Girl Named Abigail, is inspired by the passing of his Aunt Keri, who passed away when he was 4 years old. “I didn’t really get to know her as much as I would have liked to, but I know that we had a special connection. I was always told that we were very close, and especially remembering my cousins, who were her daughters, they’re some of my favourite people in the world. Seeing their experience with it, I kind of wrote it to that. I didn’t know her very well, and I didn’t get to know her full story. But hearing stories about her, and picking things up as I’ve grown up, I just left this sense to write something about her. I wanted to make it slightly more vague, so I could be writing it to people in general who have lost someone, to connect with people who have lost a loved one.”
The music video for A Girl Named Abigail is a stripped back, simple video, of Salem with his guitar. “I didn’t really want to do a traditional music video, with acting and a performative thing. I feel like it wasn’t what I wanted for the song. I felt like it needed just a performance, to see rather than just hear the emotion in my voice. I guess, watching me perform it shows more emotion, and it gives off the experience that I had while writing it. I think it captures the story even better, which is something that I was really happy with.”
The song took longer to write than some of Salem’s other tracks, which can take as little as 20 minutes, up to months. “I actually started off as more of a folky, storytelling song. It was an interesting experience going through it, and seeing the song mature as I wrote it.”
When it comes to the small details, Salem tries to always do something different, to make something creative. “I write quite chromatically, I never stick to the scale. There’s the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 1, and they’re all in a certain musical sequence of major, minor, whatever. I always try to, I guess, manipulate the major scale and change the melody around it. People don’t always pick it up, specially when you’re not a musician.”
Emotion is a huge part of Salem’s music, and he wants his music to reach people. “I want to make people feel, I guess, different when they listen to my music, not like they’re listening to any other song. They’re listening to a performance and my emotion, I guess. Listening to someone pour their heart out, rather than just a song.” His influences include a wide range, but perhaps the one he’s most drawn to is jazz. “I just love jazz, and I guess that doesn’t particularly show in my music, you can’t just hear it. But then you hear certain chords in my songs, and be like ‘oh, okay, that sounds like you listen to jazz’.”
A dream collaboration for Salem isn’t necessarily based on someone’s level of fame or status, but their ability as a songwriter. “Doing something with a Daniel Caesar or a Leon Bridges, just like someone who, oh man, like Daniel Caesar’s melodies are always so incredible! I think, writing a melody, just having a song, a person I can collaborate with who can bring that, um, musical think out of my music and their music, I feel like that would be amazing.”
Perhaps one of the biggest concerns for any young musician is the change of vocal range, a concern which Salem shared. “I was worried that I would start losing my range as I got older, becuase that’s just how life works. As you get older, your voice gets lower. But, I haven’t really lost any of my range, which is nice. I’ve always been able to sing quite high, and decently low. It hasn’t changed as much as I assumed it would, but I feel like my control has improved over the years.”
At only 17 years old, Salem has already achieved a lot of things which many artists can spend years chasing. With that level of achievement often comes a level of pressure and expectation, but Salem takes it all in stride. “I fell like it’s kind of put pressure on me in a way. I feel like I have to be winning stuff all the time, but that’s just unrealistic. You really can’t expect to. So I think it’s definitely made me excited, because it’s given me more opportunity and helped me get to know people who are just important to know in music.”
Awards and competitions aside, one of the things Salem would love to experience is having his own headline show. “I see a lot of up and coming musical artists having this one dedicated show just for them, and they have an opening act, and a bunch of people come, and sing their music. That would be the coolest thing – going to a show and people actually like singing my music, and knowing what my songs are. That would be a dream of mine.”
If Salem’s previous achievements are anything to go by, it seems that dream may become a reality before too long.
