Returning last month, London-based, Mercury prize-winning Little Simz returns in style with her new EP Drop 7. With dance influences and electronic beats throughout, Simz takes a new direction, experimenting with more club-like sounds, paired with a loser feeling overall to the vocals.
Hot off her MOBO award win, Simz has firmly cemented herself as one of Britain’s most cutting-edge artists. The EP carries on from her continuous series of EP releases, with the last, Drop 6, released in May 2020. Taking a divergence from her normal production, Simz partners with Jakwob, who most recently worked with Nia Archive and P-rallel. The seven-track collection takes inspiration from the bustling and energising nightlife of the London club scene. Blending EDM rhythms with West African influences, Simz pushes her own boundaries and shows off her true artistic skill and ability to experiment with new sounds and styles.
Whilst the EP itself is more relaxed than her prior releases, the opening track ‘Mood Swings’ still packs a punch. With an EDM beat running throughout and distance synth to back it up, Simz is at home in an unfamiliar genre. The track itself embodies its title, rising and falling in intensity as Simz’s melodic verses ring throughout. This intensity is carried on into track two, ‘Fever’, where Simz flexes her Portuguese, experimenting with rhythm and playing around with form and structure.
The third track, ‘Torch’, a personal favourite, shares some of Simz’s signature beats. Whilst never in doubt, her lyricism and rapping capabilities shine through on this track. With a powerful synth and heavy beat in the back, it is her vocals that take the main stage. Around halfway through the EP, there is no doubt that Simz is at the club. Lyrics and verse take the sideline as dance beats and heavy rhythms take centre stage. ‘SOS’, the central track in the EP, is filled with rhythmic, echoing vocals and accompanied by Western African drums and bells to create a dance experimentation of Simz’s normal style.
‘Power’ and ‘Far Away’, the penultimate tracks in the collection, finish off the EP on a slower beat. ‘Power’, though more punchy than the final track, contains some of Simz’s best lyrics as she claims “If I said that I’m the greatest then I mean it”. Simz’s witty and quick verses are the highlight, making a stark contrast to the final track, ‘Far Away’. Simz’s choice to end on this feels somewhat unusual. It is both softer in beat and rhythm, with Simz swapping rapping for singing. If we returned to the recurring clubbing theme, it could be viewed as the closing song on a night out. However, with such punchy tracks earlier on, the change in pace seems to be a slightly lacklustre finisher.
With that being said, Simz is no doubt one of Britain’s best rappers and on Drop 7 she truly experiments with style and structure in a way not always seen on her full albums. Drop 7 is a testament to Simz’s artistic skills and ability to move and seamlessly blend different genres whilst still sounding like herself. With EDM, West African influence and Simz’s own distinct vocals, she has successfully created an upbeat, funky and dance-orientated tracklist, which I would love to see her expand on in the future in a bigger project.
7/10