“No Thank You” by Little Simz: Anger is good – culture

And then suddenly the album was there. No single releases in advance, no advertising campaign, no music videos, just a few social media posts shortly before the surprise release, which also fell on a Monday and not on a Friday, as is usual even with unannounced releases. The principle has been experienced more and more recently, but more with great artists – Drake, Kanye, in a slightly different form Beyoncé. This league and always had something of a declaration of war, also to the industry, but probably more to the competition: your rules no longer apply to us.

Now it’s British rapper Little Simz who is ignoring business conventions with the release of her new album No Thank You. And that’s where it gets a little more exciting: Simz, whose real name is Simbiatu Ajikawo, is a highly relevant voice in rap and also a favorite of critics. Her famous predecessor album “Sometimes I Might Be Introvert”, released in 2021, received, among other things, the very prestigious Mercury Prize for the best album. But a new record is by no means a sure-fire success for her. When someone like Simz sends music out into the world without any warning, it’s a defiant, maybe even latently incendiary act (or it’s under suspicion of Resterampe – and that’s clear here Not the topic).

“No Thank You” (Forever Living Originals / AWAL Recordings), the fifth studio album by the 28-year-old, sounds like the logical further development of the latently inflammatory predecessor. What’s more, Simz has finally found her own, unmistakable sound with this record. Producer Inflo – a childhood friend of the rapper who she worked with on the previous two albums – liberally sprinkles gospel and soul samples on almost every beat; sometimes as a single voice in abruptly cut off bits, sometimes as a sonorous choir background. In addition, minimalistic retro breakbeats, stumbling bass drums, dry snares, nervously swinging hi-hats. Everything is just in time, but everything is also wonderfully organic, breathing, alive.

And as a parenthesis: orchestral pomp. Strings take up the melody of the bass or vocal sample and create tension with crescendos, which often dissolves into the chorus or abruptly merges into one of the many instrumentals. Film music is still opulent in terms of drama – but less than on the previous album. All in all, “No Thank You” is leaner, more well dosed, more mature. more coherent.

She pronounces the French “Merci” in English – “No thanks” becomes “No mercy”

For example, listen to “Gorilla”: fanfare intro, flight level blockbuster intro. But then the whole thing falls apart. The beat rumbles and the adorable easy-going double bass lick you can hear from “Concrete Schoolyard” by Jurassic 5 knows, smears its shuffling groove into the scenery. The ideal basis for Simz’ chanting. Technically, she has been one of the best for years, and so she seems to roam around effortlessly and at high speed on her new album, stringing together multi-bar rhyming chains, bending syllables with virtuosity. In other words: “Sim Simma, who got the keys to my bloodclaat Bimmer? / Big time driller, monkey to gorilla / Who is this woman that I’m seein’ in the mirror? / Drink ’42 and smoke cigar / Name one time where I didn’t deliver / Silent figure”.

In the following lines then internal rhymes, rhythm shows, crazy nonchalance. Advanced rap technique.

And, see above, repeated jabs at the music industry: “Everybody here gettin’ money off my name / Irony is I’m the only one not gettin’ paid”. So everyone makes money with their name – just not themselves. “No Merci” is the name of the song, so to speak the title track of the album. However, because Simz pronounces French in English, “No thanks” becomes “no mercy”. A reckoning paradigmatic for the entire record – and for the unconventional release.

Apparently, the rapper has accumulated a lot of frustration: a few months ago According to media reports, she fired her manager, who had accompanied her for seven years. In April, Simz also had to cancel her US tour. The financial losses would have been too great, she wrote on Twitter at the time. This is also a phenomenon of the Corona year: The mid-level faculty still had an extremely difficult time financially in 2022.

In any case, the independent artist does not have a major label contract and has so far released her music on her own label Age 101 Music. “No Thank You” has now been released by the record company of her producer Inflo and mainly addresses the difficulty of existing as a (quite successful) artist in the music industry if you don’t want to submit to the constraints of a big label. A fight against windmills. Yes. But at least: Out of anger Simz’s best album so far came into being.