Little Simz

GREY Area

Rapper lands on a new, bold sound that incorporates an eclectic range of influences, along with three carefully chosen features.

Amid GREY Area’s indefinites, there is one absolute: Little Simz is a big deal, and nobody knows that better than her.

‘Grey Area’ feels like a transition for Little Simz, taking her music to the next level by working with British hip-hop producer, Inflo. His impact permeates the entire album, with its an incredibly raw, poignant air – from the record’s instrumentation to the inimitable way Simz attacks nearly every track.

Despite the range of styles and topics explored throughout, GREY Area is still remarkably cohesive, and that’s largely down to Simz herself, who expertly veers between touching intimacy and searing bravado without ever losing sight of the album’s overall tone.

Though Grey Area isn't the most cutting-edge rap album out there, there's not a spot on it where Little Simz falters even slightly.

Her evolution up to this point was a clear signifier, with all the components in place even in her early work; on Grey Area, it feels as if everything has come together in perfect unison, resulting in one of the strongest rap albums of 2019.

At turns both acerbic and unguarded, GREY Area feels like the grand culmination of everything Simz has been puzzling out to this point.

Mega-stardom might never be hers in the end, but Grey Area sets out a different kind of stall anyway: Little Simz is a slow-burner, and now that she’s found a slicker sound, there’s no telling where she might go.

‘GREY Area’ ... is the first full-length release where it feels like we’re seeing the actual Simz with no facade.

At once soft and hard, fiery and vulnerable, Grey Area finds Little Simz thriving in her multi-facetedness.

GREY Area, as the title suggests, is far from the theatrics of a black and white world, but lays in the complexities of everything in between.

Few artists achieve in their lifetimes what Simbi Ajikawo has achieved at 25. Grey Area, her coming-of-age (maybe "quarter life crisis" is a better epithet) record is equal parts confident, slick, and still somehow jejune.