When Jorja Smith released her debut album in 2018, she was living in south London. After gold sales figures, Grammy and Mercury nominations and Brit Award wins, and guest spots with Drake, Burna Boy, Stormzy and Calvin Harris, she ought to be making her comeback from a sun terrace in Malibu – but no. She’s retreated to Walsall, her birthplace, where she’s bought a farmhouse.
It sounds as if that first flurry of fame, with its Brits Critics’ Choice award decreeing her British music’s next big thing, and high profile songs on Drake’s More Life mixtape after only a couple of singles of her own, was understandably a bit much. Never hungry for stardom, she has continued to avoid major record labels and refused to rush to follow up her five-year-old debut Lost & Found (a placeholding EP in 2021 was optimistically titled Be Right Back).
As with that first album, Falling or Flying has a title comprising two opposing states. “I could be falling, flying, I wouldn’t know the difference,” she sings on the slow-moving romance of the song of that name. She could be waving or drowning on Try Me, too, its moody beats and snaking guitar underpinning a song that shows her both hurt by and defiant against the opinions of the comments section. “Might hurt, but I won’t hide/I know myself,” she sings in her silky tones.
The new album sounds more mature and diverse than its ballad-heavy predecessor. “I feel like I’ve become a woman,” the 26-year-old has said. There’s a hazy reggae feel to Greatest Gift, which features a guest spot from Jamaican singer Lila Iké. After her appearance on his album in the summer, J Hus returns the favour by singing on another sultry love song, Feelings. Both Little Things and Go Go Go offer welcome pace injections, the former with a hip-shaking Latin rhythm, the latter with a surprising rock style and Smith pushing her buttery voice into a rawer place.
That voice slips past so easily that there are occasions when it sounds like she isn’t trying particularly hard. She often sounds supremely relaxed, as she should, recording in her home town with two more local women: the anonymous production duo DAMEDAME*, one of whom Smith has known since she was 15. But when the relaxed mood is punctured, as on the tale of emotional abuse Broken is the Man, it’s a reminder that this Midlands homebody is world class.
