Soul Music Duo Malice & Mario Sweet Travel With Speed of Light

The Seattle soul duo celebrate their love and life together through music

Crystal and Mario Sweet, a married couple, better known as Malice & Mario Sweet, are the yin to each other’s yang. Their affection can be compared to that of Kindred The Family Soul as they incorporate a classic sound reminiscent of those 80's grooves where funk and soul collide. Natives of Seattle, Washington – a city most proud of its legendary alternative rocks bands such as Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and Alice in Chains – the two met briefly during their college years, then being reunited through music several years later, they entered a courtship that blossomed into musical and marital bliss. Mario, a longstanding member of Seattle’s prolific underground rap group, The Physics, who are likened to the golden era in hip-hop, soon carved out space for Malice to provide melodic backdrops to The Physics tracks.

As the couple approached their second year wedding anniversary, they drummed up with the idea of doing a project to commemorate the milestone. Happy 2 Year, their first EP together as Malice & Mario Sweet was released in February 2011 and contains all the elements of their happiness, friendship, and appreciation of life’s gifts, with a sound that awakens love and positivity through a mixture of up and down tempo tunes. “Speed of Light,” the lead track from the EP, is this hard hitting drum arrangement, where their harmonies glide over the song in a melody that will have you moving and grooving. Happy 2 Year displays their effortless ability to create music to remind us that love is the universal language.

Loop 21 had the opportunity to talk with the couple just before the holidays about their sound, the Seattle music scene and how they balance their music with their marriage.

Loop 21: How would you describe your sound?

Malice: It’s pretty much happy R&B, for the most part. Particularly if you were to describe the sound of our EP. It's a celebration of our second year wedding anniversary and we just thought to do something to celebrate us but in a musical form and see if anybody sticks to it. It was pretty much a test run but at the end of the day, we kept telling ourselves if nobody likes it, and if nobody digs it, then as long as we like it, we’re happy. It just kind of evolved from the beats we got from some of the local incredible producers, and it inspired the sound. We really wanted to keep it positive throughout the project and was like, there were no cuss words in it. It’s family friendly, and it poppy and genuinely comes from a place that we were at as we wrote it.

Mario: The positivity piece, we were both very adamant about. From just looking around, you hear a lot of struggle, everyday, and it can be draining and daunting on a person’s spirit and I think that music is one of those things that can really help to motivate and inspire and we wanted to do that – celebrate us, celebrate life, tell people to smile.

Loop 21: How long have you known each other and how long have you been working together?

Malice: We’ve known each other for about 7 years. We actually met briefly in college but then reunited again 7 years ago. I basically was boasting outside a nightclub after one too many spirits, that I could sing which is quite unusual for my character to be a bragger. I had heard Mario singing on a friend’s album and thought he had a great voice. I was up for the challenge to do something musically with him. We actually wrote a song the first time that we ever really hung out together. We are also a part of a group called The Physics.

Loop 21: What is your relationship to The Physics?