Moliy is taking over, one baddie moment at a time

The energy shifts when Moliy walks in the room. It’s well into the afternoon by the time we get her The Cover shoot rolling, but when she arrives – her braided ponytail swinging, blinged-up in a steely bad gyal outfit that catches every ray of light – the room recalibrates. She twists her hips to the sounds of rap’s current glamazons, giggling as her cheeks squeeze plump; the sterile, white studio fills with new life. This is how Moliy operates: she sets the temperature and everyone else adjusts.

We hear that chuckle again, weeks later, on Zoom for her NME interview. “I just giggle all the time. I can’t help it,” she retorts. But sit with Moliy – real name Moliy Ama Montgomery – long enough and the giggle starts to feel like a tell. It surfaces right before she drops something important, like she’s immune to pressure even as the world changes around her. She’d know something about that as the star behind the 2024 international dance hit ‘Shake It To The Max’. The infectious bone-rattler produced by Silent Addy and Disco Neil blended Afrobeats and dancehall for a diaspora-uniting sound that made Moliy an emerging leader of Afro-pop at dizzying speed.