Review: Little Simz, Thekla

A 2019 Mercury award nominee and one of the most vital and important UK artists of the moment playing a 400 or so capacity boat may be seen as a significant anomaly or at least unlikely. A larger venue could have been booked and easily sold out but not on this dreary Monday evening when British hip-hop phenomenon Little Simz played the Thekla.

Almost surprisingly, Little Simz has a genuinely intergenerational audience ranging from teens to students to ‘Yay! I’m not the oldest person here!’ The enthusiasm for her music from the majority of attendees during the performance was infectious from the outset.

Kicking off with the single Boss, Little Simz proceeded to do just that throughout her set. She bossed it. Declaiming into a megaphone her rapid rapping, over note and beats perfect bass, drums and keyboards, made it clear who was in charge and why. This was the sound of a strong, confident performer and a strong, articulate woman at the top of her game, no question.

The set focussed primarily on her latest album GREY Area but she was not afraid to re-visit her back catalogue, two songs in and she dropped God Bless Mary from first album A Curious Tale of Trials + Persons; a heartfelt tale about her tolerant neighbour who never complained about the music and noise Simz was creating at all hours next door. The softer, jazzier style (think Tyler the Creator on Flowerboy) complemented and showcased Simz’s talent for lyrical storytelling and her ability to make people listen: because what she is saying has meaning.

And never was this more apparent in the track Wounds which immediately followed. Again the smooth jazz-inflected music but spitting bars infused with honesty, pain and fury. Her description of the senseless murder of a friend and the horrific result of gun culture on society and the individual was the personal being politically articulated to devastating effect.

The personal as political was a dominant theme throughout much of the show, Little Simz documented her experiences and the experiences of her contemporaries in the GREY Area material using a first-person narrative where on the songs from her first albums there was more detachment and telling of tales. The greater intimacy she created when performing the sinister-sounding, deserving to be a feminist anthem grime cut Venom ensured that the crowd listened to the lyrics and maybe even took on board her intentions.

The entire set was a tour-de-force of spot-on, so fast you can’t believe you can hear every word rapping, spot-on grime, jazzy, soulful nu-hip hop all underpinned with an engaging, charismatic stage presence. At no point could you doubt that Little Simz was anything other than authentic, honest and bringing the realness in every song and every bit of onstage chat.

The between-song banter also provided an effective counterpoint to the intensity and energy of the performance and a particularly sweet moment was when she saw that an audience member was sketching her, stopped the intro to a song, had a look at the picture, showed the crowd and seemed genuinely pleased by it, then smacked back into the song.

Little Simz is an honest, open performer with an unerring ability to connect with her audience. Rarely does the language of female freedom and empowerment sound so good and indeed accessible.

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