Album Review: Little Simz - GREY Area
Hip-hop, for all the progress it has made over the past few decades culminating in its current place as the most popular genre in the world, has since its inception been plagued with numerous outdated attitudes from the culture which created it. Of particular note is rap's treatment of women; as a result of their invocation as a status symbol alongside jewelry and expensive cars, any female MC attempting to make a name for herself has to be incredibly talented and work many times as hard as her male counterparts to get any recognition. As inspiring as it is that artists like Noname and Rhapsody are finally seeing success, it is but another reminder of how much progress there is yet to make in ridding rap of its misogyny; still, if they are at least steps in the right direction, than GREY Area, the newest album from UK rapper Little Simz, is another giant leap forward, and a self-aware one at that.
The 25-year-old has released plenty of material already, but nothing to come before sounds nearly as mature and refined as this, while maintaining a youthful charm and energy. Right from the first moments of snappy percussion on Offence, the production (provided by her personal friend Inflo) makes it clear to the listener that GREY Area is more than just a run-of-the-mill rap album. These sounds bear resemblance to the infamous UK grime scene, certainly, but the sheer creativity here knows no contemporaries. What distinguishes this record most prominently, however, is Simz's improved rapping; on this cut she declares "I'm Jay-Z on a bad day, Shakespeare on my worst days", and by the time a few more songs have passed by, such a ridiculous claim seems more than reasonable.
Much of the production on the album's first half is full of inspired quirks: both Offence and Boss feature messy bass lines heavily distorted by feedback, on the former track contrasting delightfully against sharp string lines (and the aforementioned drum beat) while on the latter finding harmony with Simz's equally grimy voice asserting "I don't need that stress, that stress/I'm a boss in a fucking dress". These instrumental and vocal ideas all culminate on the short yet powerful Venom, the eerie opening strings underscoring her direct confrontation of the sexism present in her genre ("They would never wanna admit I'm the best here/From the mere fact that I've got ovaries") and modern society ("Pussy, you sour/Never giving credit where it's due 'cause you don't like pussy in power/Venom"). Her delivery is immaculate in its unrestrained passion, never abating as the moody bass and hi-hats continue to escalate.
As the album goes on Simz trades her bombastic, righteous fury for a more soulful, introspective flow that almost sounds like spoken word at points, namely on the most personal moments of Therapy and Sherbet Sunset. The production reflects her shift in mood, moving from slick bass lines and propellant percussion to a slower groove supported by guitar licks and jazzier drum beats. Even on less explicit tracks, however, such as the subdued Pressure, her fury remains unmistakable as she spits "Take a walk in my shoes/Or any other young black person in this age/All we ever know is pain/All we ever know is rage" with, well, absolute venom. Despite how Little Dragon's unpolished vocals turn the last third of the track into a weak, meandering ending, the magnificence with which she spits is both frightening and awe-inspiring.
The crown jewel of this latter mood is the closer Flowers, a collaboration with singer Michael Kiwanuka and an utterly beautiful summation of the anger, doubt, and self-reflection that make this album so amazing. As the record nears its end, Kiwanuka becomes perhaps the most worthy partner to Simz's talent to be found here, his subtle background support, incredibly emotional chorus, and back-and-forth with Simz in the track's final moments all demonstrating this fact distinctly. The horns underneath it all are equally gorgeous, yet Simz's final words are not ones of optimism, but instead of fear born from uncertainty and a sense of morality, especially as an troubled artist in her mid-twenties: "The fee seldom that you be taking to Heaven's gates/No ID, no entry, 27 Club says/The good fly young, the good are our greats/Jimi, Basquiat, Amy, Robert, Janis, Kurt Kobain".
If there is any bone to be picked with this album, it is only that its production and guests often cannot keep up with the flawless consistency of Simz's bars. Cracks begin to occasionally show: a distinctly East Asian instrumental on 101 FM that just sounds kitschy, a mediocre bridge provided by Chronixx on Wounds, the unpolished singing of Little Dragon on Pressure; throughout it all, though, Simz is unaffected, continuing to steal the show despite her peers falling short. Even on Therapy where her bare-bones poetics seems to clash with the beat, her flow constantly feeling one moment's hesitance away from falling apart, she is somehow able to keep spitting expertly as the bass increases its intensity and the beat is flooded with vocal samples and synthetic noise.
The notion that one must endure suffering and hardship to produce great art, while unequivocally a harmful and problematic assumption, holds within it a grain of truth. While not a requirement for creativity, to be able to turn one's struggles into meaningful poetry is a long-standing hip-hop tradition of which GREY Area is only a particularly recent and eloquent example. Little Simz, being forced to deal with the 'grey area' of living through her twenties, the tumultuous political realities of the modern world, and (most prominently) the misogynistic barriers of rap music, has channeled her experiences into one of the most compelling and personal hip-hop albums in recent memory. It is an unfortunate reality to live in where someone this talented has to fight against so much to achieve any sort of notoriety, but her efforts to do so, crystallized in this record's absolute splendor, cannot be denied. As she herself puts it: "What is life without victory?"
9/10
Favourite Tracks: Offence, Boss, Venom, Flowers
https://open.spotify.com/album/4Wwm4xg2748zhYuzDRFTgY?si=87MSTAuASeOiAZ-qiinOug