Singer Mario is back with new single “Drowning.”
The singer is set to drop his upcoming album, Dancing Shadows, this fall and, in an interview with ESSENCE, he described it as “cosmic soul.” “Some [songs are] more soulful. There are grungier records. And, then some more, I would say, traditional stuff.”
Dancing Shadows comes nine years after the singer’s 2009 release D.N.A., a span of time that included various singles like “Let Me Help You,” “I Need More,” and “Fatal Distraction,” and saw a lot of things in Mario’s life change. Last year, the singer’s mother, Shawntia Hardaway, passed away. Remembering her on Instagram, Mario wrote, “Your soul lives forever beside mine! We love you Shawntia Hardaway I love you eternally.”
Throughout those years, Mario has bounced back and forth between Los Angeles and Baltimore, his hometown, visiting friends and family who remain in the city. The singer says songs like “Good Time” and “What You Started,” from his forthcoming album, shed light on the city and its struggles, but he’s quick to highlight the good things the city has to offer.
“It’s a lot of history in Baltimore. There’s a lot of great food in Baltimore, seafood there. You know, we have one of the best aquariums. We have some really cool museums in Baltimore,” he tells ESSENCE. “There’s an African American museum in Baltimore. There’s Fells Point, which still feels like really old Baltimore, you still have the cobblestone, old buildings, and really old hotels.” He also mentions that the best spot for seafood is Mo’s Seafood
For Mario, Dancing Shadows is set to be an exploration of personal growth and “expressing these different dimensions of myself.”
Reflecting on the name of the album, the singer adds, “I’ve always had a fascination with shadows. You know, I’ve always thought it was cool how you could manipulate a shadow. We see the shadow right here and this is my hand, obviously, but you can manipulate it to look like whatever you want. So, we’re always kind of projecting things and expressing ourselves in different ways. And, this is just my way of expressing myself.”
Dancing Shadows drops this fall, but until then, check out “Drowning” on Apple Music and Spotify.