Samia fakes confidence and knows no bounds in new single, “Mad at Me”

By Nadya Barghouty

We’ve all been there before. When there’s that little self-doubt devil sitting on your shoulder while you slowly type out the message: “Are you mad at me?”. Nine times out of ten, the question usually isn’t based in reality, but rather comes from an insatiable urge to be loved and accepted. On her latest single “Mad at Me,” Samia takes the age-old insecure question to a place of unreachable confidence. 

Samia’s first gut-wrenching release from Honey, “Kill Her Freak Out,” primarily relied on isolated vocals and minimalism, while “Mad at Me” is a new wave upbeat pop song shrouded in excess. The track even has a feature from Minneapolis-based artist, Papa Mybe, adding a secondary layer of community over top of the confidence. In all, the dreamy synth pop track has relatively simple lyricism. Certain lines stick out, such as the opening: “Couldn't afford to, why would I want to / Pick up the glass I'm stepping around?”. Samia is basically saying it isn’t even worth her time to engage in this conversation and whoever is on the other side might as well just concede. For some reason, all I can think about is how there’s that internet fact that if Bill Gates stopped to pick up a $20 bill on the ground, he would have wasted more money in the time it takes to pick the bill up. Samia is cosplaying a person with what most of us see as unattainable confidence. 

Around the one minute mark, really heavy feedback fills the bridge, segmenting the track in a way that’s anything but overbearing. Beyond that, “Mad at Me’ has a lot of great textures and a solid dance beat leaving you hooked the whole way through. The song continually builds up and crashes like a wave into a quieter, yet punchier bridge--which brings us to Papa Mbye’s verse. Mbye puts his own spin on the track adding a fun change of pace. Then once again, like dangling a bone in front of a dog, Samia teases, “Are you still mad at me?” by asking “Are you still mad at me?”. Samia takes power in the conversation, even going as far as repeating: “I don’t wanna know, I don’t” until the track ends.  

“Mad at Me” was released with an accompanying music video directed by Samia and Muriel Knudson. The video features Samia and her friends being the ultimate ‘cool girls’. They look like they don’t have a care in the world as they are dancing and having fun with each other. The colors are elating and the clips are fast moving. Muriel, another close friend of Samia’s, captures the girls jumping around truly not giving a damn: the perfect embodiment of “fake-it-till-you-make-it”. By involving so many of her close friends, Samia’s track is given new depth. While “Mad at Me” is about people-pleasing and zero confidence, it is most definitely not about loneliness. All the girls are playing the same role, which means in actuality they are all in the same boat of struggling with self-doubt. 

Samia recently announced her winter 2023 Honey tour with opener Tommy Lefroy starting February 6. This tour might be the beginning of a huge confidence boost for Samia. While she may never reach the persona projected in “Mad at Me,” I am betting she’ll get pretty damn close when she plays those venues and everyone's singing right along with her.