The first time I saw Little Simz in person, she was jumping in time with the sweaty crowd at Melbourne’s Corner Hotel in 2019. Blitzing through her GREY Area standout ‘101 FM’, she rapped with no vocal track, conducting her audience through ad libs, and getting so close to the front of the stage you could’ve reached for a high five if she’d stood still for more than a second.
It wouldn’t take long for Little Simz to outgrow sticky pub floors—she was hailed with the prestigious Mercury Prize for her 2021 album Sometimes I Might Be Introvert and continued to flourish on 2022’s NO THANK YOU, squeezing in a star turn on Netflix’s Top Boy revival playing as the razor-sharp Shelley.
By the time she returned to Melbourne in 2023, Little Simz looked like a spectral dot from my view at the back of Margaret Court Arena. Holding court in front of a giant monochromatic LED screen, Simz held the attention of over seven thousand with the same controlled chaos that she’d harnessed at the Corner. It was a coronation of sorts: the rising star had risen, and a global megastar had arrived.
After touring the world, the stage was set for Little Simz’s sixth studio album to be a victory lap. Then, it seems, it all fell apart. Simz contemplated walking away from music, scrapped four albums’ worth of material, and faced a severe crisis of self-doubt after the most successful stretch of her career.
What we know is that in January, Little Simz started civil proceedings against her former producer Inflo over an alleged failure to repay a loan of £1.7 million ($3.5 million AUD) that left her unable to pay tax bills. The rupture runs deep—Simz and Inflo were childhood friends with entwined careers, with Inflo producing the last three Little Simz albums and Simz working extensively with Inflo’s collective SAULT as well as his wife, Cleo Sol.
I was under no illusions Little Simz was going to share more on an understandably sensitive when we spoke. If Louis Theroux couldn’t wheedle out information, what hope do the rest of us have? Besides, we were warned in advance of the conversation that the topic would be off limits.
Still, Simz is willing to nod towards the turmoil when asked whether she had any hesitation about collaborating with a new producer. The artist selected Miles Clinton James, who worked on every song on the new album and is known for his previous work with Kokoroko.
“It wasn’t a thing of me not trusting Miles—it was me not trusting myself, to be honest. Not trusting in my ability to get this over the line,” she says over the phone. “But Miles definitely did an amazing job of just making me feel comfortable—comfortable enough to write about uncomfortable things, you know? I’ll always be grateful for the work he put in and how he backed it, showed up every day, and really committed to the project.”
The album that eventuated, Lotus, vindicates Simz’s conviction to resist retirement. It’s an expansive but often pensive record that revels in its rawness, baring fangs and feelings in equal measure.
Across Lotus, Simz tackles her conflict head-on with a litany of barbs that are (most likely) directed at Cover. Most obviously, the ferocious opener ‘Thief’, which addresses an exploitative Gemini whose “name wasn’t popping” until they worked with Simz (Cover, for what it’s worth, was born on June 4).
“You talk about God when you have a God complex/I think you’re the one who needs saving” she snarls, later adding: “I’m lucky I got out now, it’s a shame/Though I really feel sorry for your wife.” On ‘Hollow’, a wounded Simz muses “You told me be wary of the sharks and then you became one/What can anyone truly expect from a day one?”
Elsewhere, on title track ‘Lotus’, she puts the flamethrower on the world at large: “They want me speak on world issues on the internet/But that’s not how I speak my truth or the way I express/You ain’t got a clue how I feel, and what I suppress”. (Along with the legal case, “politics” was off limits for our discussion.)
But Lotus is not solely concerned with settling the score. The title takes its name from the flower that prospers in muddy waters. While the diss tracks have turned heads, Lotus is the most Simz has spent talking about love on an album, a reflection of the personal journey she’s been on recently.
“I just had to figure out what love meant to me—what it looked like for me, where I’m at now, how it’s different from how I used to see it and get honest with myself about that,” she said.
“But also just understanding that if I’m feeling like I don’t want to do music anymore but I still push through…I must really love this thing. So I wanted to talk about that, too, because that love is a big part of what got this album over the line.”
Little Simz’s affection for the feminist writer bell hooks is well-documented. Simz name-dropped hooks’ seminal All About Love on Lotus, brought her up in a 2021 Pitchfork interview and gushed about the writer on her Chicken Shop Date.
Simz, like hooks, grapples with the push–pull of love and fear. In All About Love, hooks writes: “In a world anguished by rampant destruction, fear prevails. When we love, we no longer allow our hearts to be held captive by fear.” On ‘Free’, Simz raps “Fear’ll probably hear this and feel exposed/Fear works best when love isn’t close/But love will never judge you because of your pain.”
“Yeah, I think it’s about forgiving yourself and just trying your best to act in love, not in fear,” Simz says of the thematic link. “That’s a hard thing—it’s easier said than done—but I think now, with things happening in my life, it’s way easier to identify: is this an act of love or an act of fear? And just being more self-aware in that sense, and trying my best to act out of love more often.”
Part of practising love is embracing your community. In the face of a betrayal, many would close ranks. Simz has done the opposite. She’s retooled with a new producer, and she has stacked Lotus with a glittering cast of her friends and peers, such as Obongjayar, Moses Sumney, Michael Kiwanuka and Jungle’s Lydia Kitto.
Simz wouldn’t be drawn on a favourite collaboration on the album, but she expanded when asked about ‘Blood’, a back-and-forth link-up with North London rapper Wretch 32. It’s part interlude, part song and plays out like a phone call between siblings.
“We wrote that together. As soon as I told Wretch I had this idea, this concept—the idea being we’re siblings, and you’re an artist that’s been away, and I’m here holding it down for Mum and the family,” she says.
“Just the short brief I gave him, he understood the assignment. He knew how to manoeuvre the conversation, knew where to come from and how to attack it. Where to be honest and vulnerable, and where to be frustrated. We just explored real things—stuff like, ‘I thought you were the favourite,’ or ‘You don’t call me.’ Just real stuff. It felt like a real conversation, and I think we executed it really well.”
At the time of our conversation, Little Simz is in the middle of curating and headlining the 30th anniversary of London’s Meltdown Festival.
Following in the footsteps of luminaries such as David Bowie and Grace Jones, she’s curated a loaded line-up that includes Mahalia, James Blake, The Streets and BadBadNotGood, and is preparing to close the festival with a performance alongside the Chineke! Orchestra (The Guardian would go on to hail it “equal parts genuine and genius” in a five-star review).
Simz is fitting Meltdown in between a film shoot (she wouldn’t specify, but it might be her just-announced role alongside Cillian Murphy) and before starting a long European tour which will culminate with a hometown show at the legendary O2 Arena, a realisation of a lifelong ambition.
“I just try to be present as much as I can and understand like—this was once a dream, and this very much has become my reality,” she says.
But given everything—the lawsuit, the crammed schedule—the question lingers: is Little Simz doing okay?
“I am alright, in the grand scheme. I might have a little moan, a little complaint here and there—but I’m genuinely fine,” she says.
“There’s definitely worse things I could be doing, so I am grateful that I’m able to do what I’m doing. But it does get hard, innit? It’s very demanding. Everyone wants something from you, and they want it now, and that is a tough thing for me to get my head around. But it’s all right, man. I’m trying my best, you know?”