GREY Area – Little Simz

Year	Album	Artist	Stars	Score	Genre
2019	GREY Area	Little Simz	★★★★	82	Hip-Hop	UK Hip-Hop

Every track on Little Simz’ GREY Area shows how effortlessly talented the British rapper is.

Her 2019 release is her third album overall, but was the first to really gain traction with U.S. hip-hop heads. She comes off as very confident, delivering sharp lyrics with a quick cadence that’s at times powerful and other times playful while still maintaining a serious tone. The album is extremely crisp—a breezy 35 minutes—with clean, simple production. While others in the British hip-hop scene can sometimes get tiresome or repetitive over a full album for folks who don’t dive into the genre often, Simz does a lot to make each song sound different, catchy and smart. 

Simz has cool aggression and confidence on “Offence,” with a funky and fuzzy bass riff that really interestingly pairs with light strings, pianos and backing vocals. “Boss” follows up with a similar, simple drum and bass track but also brings a rock-influenced distorted chorus. The reflective “Selfish” has a soft piano part that feels like a “Dead Presidents” sample, with Cleo Sol providing a pensive chorus and backing vocals, giving it a golden age hip-hop vibe when mixed with Simz personal verses. Then “Wounds” and “Venom” bring these eerie backing elements and guitar riffs that give Simz a chance to deliver some of her fierce bars.  “101 FM” in contrast is lighter, bouncy and serves as what could have been a traditional, summery single.

The back half of the record offers a little less diversity in terms of sound, with most tracks being a similar, slower tempo and Simz utilizing a more serious, consistent flow that does a good job at telling her story but isn’t always as energizing. You do get nice energy in segments of “Pressure,” which features some cool glitch from indie electronic artist Little Dragon, and the Michael Kiwanuka-featured closing track “Flowers” reintroduces a little more musical color with some jazzy drums, bass and trumpet.