Little Simz’ fifth studio album, ‘NO THANK YOU’, lambasts a failing music industry whilst touching on institutional racism and generational trauma.
With a BRIT Award, an Ivor Novello award, a headline slot on Glastonbury’s West Holt Stage and a Mercury Prize for the universally acclaimed ‘Sometimes I Might Be Introvert’, it came as a surprise that just eight weeks after collecting the latter award, Little Simz released NO THANK YOU.
Simz’ latest release is condensed to just 10 songs and centres around an artist seemingly getting things off their chest, rather than an intricate and sprawling concept album like the record that came before.
She swiftly returns with frustration and exasperation in the opening track ‘Angel’, as she vents: “Now, I’m scared and mortified, what did I expect from those livin’ the corporate life? / Unfortunately, honesty isn’t normalised.”
The record as a whole continues to touch on these topics, yet there is an overwhelming defiance that Simz will now be doing things her own way.
Despite the euphoria critically and commercially in the last year, reaching the peak of the musical mountain for Simz has been laced with issues that would make you question why you wanted to get there in the first place.
Her distributor, AWAL, was bought by Sony, Simz cut ties with her manager after seven years, and in April, her US tour was cancelled due to financial difficulties.
So, it comes as no surprise that NO THANK YOU is stitched together with resentment, anger and defiance as shown on ‘Gorilla’.
Long-time collaborator and producer Inflo helps to compliment Simz’ profound lyrical delivery, while Cleo Sol provides stellar backup vocals, as the pair – whom are both rumoured to be part of the mysterious and genre-spanning group SAULT – renew a familiar partnership.
While NO THANK YOU is not as thematic or grand as Sometimes I Might Be Introvert, this does not translate to a drop-off in quality as a lot of the instrumental ideas seem to have trickled over to the point where some of these tracks could seamlessly be part of a deluxe edition of SIMBI.
There isn’t any let up when it comes to hard-hitting topics either as shown in ‘X’, as Simz tackles the generational trauma of black people as she raps: “Been beaten on, we been chewed on / But it happened years ago, so we should just move on / You think that man don’t know pain ‘cause he got a suit on? / ’Cause he finally got a plate that he can now have food on?”
The track is accompanied by elegant strings and choral influences as Simz relentlessly delivers for close to six minutes.
— Little Simz (@LittleSimz) December 28, 2022
‘Broken’ is frankly another deeply emotive song about mental health struggles, corporate greed, gender and race.
There is a focus on the struggles of independent black women and trying to break the cycle of generational trauma.
“All I wanted to do was uplift the women / You gotta move if you ain’t backin’ the vision,” Simz says as she attempts to articulate her own struggles within the industry whilst referring more broadly to society on what is an undoubtedly special track.
With the unexpected release of NO THANK YOU, there is a level of looseness exercised as Simz lets her thoughts be known.
Little Simz is one of the finest and most important artists around, and this new project only serves to cement her position even further.
Rating: 8/10
Feature Image Credit: WFUV Public Radio on Flickr.