This Brixton Academy gig showed the world-class rapper take on all comers (including hecklers)
There were some unexpected gaps in the crowd for the first of three sold out homecoming shows by London rapper Little Simz. On the street outside, I saw two girls weeping to comfort one another after being turned away for not having the newly obligatory vaccine pass. But not even Omicron jitters could stop this Christmas party getting started, as the thousands who had braved the restrictions filled the huge venue with noise and energy. “Three nights at Brixton Academy, you know!” beamed Little Simz, proudly, to enormous and sustained applause. “They tell me I’m the first female to do that … in the world!”
Rap is a heavily male dominated field, and recent UK trends in grime and drill seem especially so, perhaps because there’s a thread of macho aggression underpinning the scene. Yet against the odds, Little Simz has established herself as not just the most popular female rapper in Britain but one of the finest rappers of her generation, and unequivocally the most critically acclaimed artist (of any gender, in any genre) in the world this year. Global reviews aggregator website Metacritic found that Little Simz masterful album Sometimes I Might Be Introvert has been the highest ranked by critics in 2021 (topping ten polls of prominent publications – including the Telegraph – and ranking top ten in 25 more).
It is all the more impressive because Simz is not an obviously commercial artist. At 27, after six years of releases, Simbiatu Ajikawo has still not scored a top 75 single. She operates on the more musically ambitious and socially conscious edges of the rap genre, with a huge range encompassing rich seventies funk and soul with strong jazzy inflections, a contrasting pulse of dirty grime flecked electro and a bright strand of afrobeat influences drawing on her Nigerian family heritage (with UK-Nigerian singer Obongjayar joining her onstage for an uplifting romp through Point and Kill).
She has been aided on record by a production relationship with Dean Josiah Cover aka Inflo, who latterly lent his talents to Adele’s world beating album, 30. To do the huge scope of her complex sound justice in a live setting, Simz had assembled a virtuoso nine-piece band including four female backing singers whose complex choral arrangements conjured a classical meets Broadway dazzle.
Simz herself briefly essayed her own talents on keyboards and electric guitar but focussed on the relentless rat-a-tat-tat delivery of her fantastically eloquent and purposeful rhymes. At times, the jazzy backing conjured a moody ambience with drums providing percussive interjections, whilst the rhythmic movement depended almost entirely on the star’s metronomic vocal delivery. During a solo a capella recitation, Simz was interrupted by shouting from a heckler. “Shut the f*** up, read the room,” she snapped, in perfect time, without breaking her stride or missing a beat from her rap.
It was, from start to finish, a world class display of skills, if almost too variated and hugely demanding of the audience to keep up. Little Simz has not achieved her current status by plugging into mainstream commercial pop, she has been so supremely excellent that the mainstream has had to widen a bit to acknowledge her.
“I don’t want to get preachy preachy,” Little Simz said, basking in applause from one of the most vigorous calls for encores you could hope to hear. “But if there’s something I want you to take from the show it’s that you can do anything. Cause I’m from a council estate in North London, and here we all are together.” Little Simz is at the top of her game right now. And yet the feeling is that she is only getting started.
Little Simz is at the O2 Brixton Academy tonight and tomorrow.
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