Eyes On The Prize

Maya Jama hasn’t let a tough background stop her from becoming one of the buzziest names on the presenting scene. Lucy Pavia meets a one-woman powerhouse.

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As a teenager, Maya Jama set herself a pretty ambitious trio of career goals: to work as an MTV presenter, to front a primetime television show and to have her own national radio gig. At 23, she’s ticked offevery one. So does she need a fresh list? ‘Well, the end goal,’ she tells me in her deep, smoky voice that cuts through the clatter of the photo studio we’re sitting in, ‘is a chat show, like Graham Norton or Alan Carr, with a mix between celebrity guests with silly games and then a full sit-down interview with an audience.’ She pauses, ‘there’s also acting. I would love to be a Bond girl.’

Post-shoot, Maya slips back into a red and black P.E Nation tracksuit (‘my uniform’), she sits cross-legged and bolt upright opposite me with a cup of tea. Even in baggy sportswear she’s a knockout, with a fine-featured oval face, Snapchat-filter smooth skin and Jessica Rabbit curves. The buzz surrounding Jama at the moment has given her a work schedule to match, including two new spots on Radio 1 (hosting the Saturday Greatest Hits show and co-presenting with Scott Mills and Chris Stark on a Friday) and upcoming Channel 4 series The Gig That Saved Me, as well as ITV’s Cannonball and 4Music’s Trending Live.

This buzz can partly be attributed to Jama being one half of the nation’s new favourite power couple. She began dating grime artist Stormzy in 2014, but only went public with their relationship two years later. The two tweet each other McDonald’s orders at 2am, and she is the inspiration for his song Birthday Girl. However you feel about the term #couplegoals, the Jama-Stormzy pair-up is very much it. But to call Jama ‘Stormzy’s girlfriend’ is to sell her short – as is the (pretty sexist) assumption that she’s hitched a ride on his success.