Little Simz HHV Records 10 Items

Indie hip hop on her own terms

As a child in the early 2000s, Simbiatu Ajikawo became fascinated with the music of Missy Elliott – the “Queen of Rap” was currently turning the hip hop industry upside down and igniting in the British girl with Nigerian roots the desire to also perform on stage. Ajikawo wrote her first lyrics at the age of eleven, and initially she embarked on an acting career: the BBC series Spirit Warriors featured her in a leading role as a teenager, and she also appeared on camera in Youngers. However, music was not long in coming: she released her first mixtape under the name Little Simz on her own in 2010. Stratosphere was followed by the tapes Stratosphere 2, XY.Zed and Blank Canvas – the latter being pushed by Jay-Z himself upon its release in 2013, which brought the Londoner a wave of attention and respect in the scene. Over the next two years, she worked non-stop on new tracks and released a series of EPs – the diversity of her releases, the mix of boom-bap and “jazz”:Jazz influences, and Little Simz’s creative range of topics even moved Kendrick Lamar to pay homage to the rapper on his new career peak in 2015: “Little Simz might be the illest doin right now,” he said casually. And he was right: in early 2015, she received the title of Breakthrough Artist of the Year at the British Worldwide Awards.

You just have to be yourself

Little Simz’s first long-player, A Curious Tale of Trials + Persons, begins with a clear statement, “Everybody knows that I’m king now / Did you hear that? Women can be kings.” She also told the Guardian, “I’m not a UK female MC, I’m an artist.” Ajikawo is unsympathetic to pigeonholing. Her first album follows the concept of a journey, embodying different people she met on her way to success. In the process, she sometimes performs her introspective lyrics almost as spoken word, while on other tracks she flows rapidly over multi-faceted jazz and soul beats. When it comes to artistic authenticity, the Brit has no problems – as a result of years of working on her rhymes, as she said herself: “I realised that you have to be honest. When you’re being open, that’s when people connect with you. You just have to be yourself.” And that works best as an indie artist: on her own label Age 101, Little Simz released her second album-length work in 2016 – Stillness in Wonderland is an Alice in Wonderland-inspired concept album that metaphorically embodies an escapism into art, where partly psychedelic-atmospheric soundscapes underscore reference-rich lyrics. Little Simz positioned herself musically even more diverse than before.

Enough reasons to stay independent

The long-player met with great international response, and in the same year the rapper accompanied Gorillaz on tour as a support act, followed by a collabo track. In 2019, she teamed up with producer Inflo for the raucous record Grey Area, featuring Cleo Sol and Little Dragon – the record became her first chart success in the Top 100, and the follow-up Sometimes I Might Be Introvert, again with the help of Inflo and Cleo Sol, even made it to number four in 2021. The rapper remained true to her concept of unsparing honesty: in the reflective lyrics she analyzes society and herself. For this she was nominated for the Mercury Prize in the same year – but she was hardly granted a creative break, because in 2022 the next record NO THANK YOU would already be released. Here, the artist presents herself organically, emotionally, personally, sometimes ecstatically, and the new long player addresses racism and mental health as well as the exploitation of young artists in the music industry: “Undervalued, underappreciated in the workplace / Why give you my ideas in the first place?” The rapper has enough reasons to stay independent, and she does – in the name of her art.