Welcome to Ear 2 Da Sky! Each week, I will be going over topics within music culture and reviewing albums and EPs across genres, eras and artists that are submitted by readers like you, and listeners of my radio show every Wednesday at 11 p.m. on WHUS 91.7 FM! For this week’s submission, I’ll be listening to Little Simz’s EP “Sometimes I Might Be Introvert.”
Released Sept. 3, 2021, her fourth studio album clocks in at a solid 65 minutes with 19 songs. Simz gets introspective on her introversion and speaks on her struggles to traverse the oddity of seclusion while still standing in the eyes and speaking into the ears of millions. She also fights this music industry assumption of extraversion; the need to be outgoing and high energy at all times just to be able to stay afloat within the business.
“Introvert” is the first track off the project, opening with an epic orchestral arrangement that acts as a back track to Simz speaking on the warring personalities within herself. She also speaks on problems within her community back home in London.
This album was written and worked on during the height of and throughout the COVID-19 pandemic which had assisted in creating an extreme housing crisis in the area. One of the resulting issues being gentrification, which is a problem Simz says she has personally suffered from.
Track two, “Women” is a celebration and praise of women across the globe. Cleo Sol is featured on this song, providing her light and delicate vocals all throughout the track. Simz makes it a point to shoutout women of various cultures, countries and cities, shouting-out women of Nigeria, London, Yoruba, India and Brooklyn just to name a few. She ends out the song with a voicemail from her cousin who stays on theme of the album: duality. “And how you don’t really get greatness without sacrifice / And you don’t get good things without a little bit of pain / And how happiness is the substitute for the emptiness that you.”
There’s a sharp but smooth transition into track three, “Two Worlds Apart.” The listener has a Smokey Robinson sample thrown right in their face from the start that derives from Robinson’s “The Agony and the Ecstasy” on his 1975 album “A Quiet Storm.” It acts as the climax of the song, as producer Inflo loops Robinson singing about the track’s namesake — again, touching on the idea of duality and struggling to balance two sides of a proverbial scale.
Continuing the commentary on the dichotomy is track four “I Love You, I Hate You.” She speaks on the twisted and convoluted relationship between her and her father. Simz grasps with her upbringing as she feels the need to maintain face and be able to move on without him, “Lyin’ to myself, pretendin’ I was never phased by it / Maybe ‘cause you’re in my DNA, that’s why.”
She questions their relationship as he wasn’t there for her, yet he still had a part in giving her life. But as the strings come in — eventually turning into another orchestral arrangement similarly to track one — she finally speaks in an empathetic way towards her father. “Angry ’cause they don’t meet your unrealistic standards / Then you realise that they’re human and you calm down.” I think this is a line that a lot of people can relate to and possibly even find solace in, no matter the severity of their own personal relationships — good or bad. There is a point in your life where you realize that your parents aren’t superheroes, and that’s OK. They’re just people at the end of the day.
Little Simz’s “Sometimes I Might Be Introvert,” braves a battle that some people will never choose to face: contemplation of where one stands in the world. With the constant theme of duality, Simz proves to us that there isn’t just one answer and there is especially no one-size-fit-all mentality. While Little Simz has had incredible project after project as well as overwhelming success, I believe that “Sometimes I Might Be Introvert” will stand the test of time and be something she’s remembered for decades from now. From the raps to the production and the overall artistry, I believe that it is just a wonderful album from front to back.
Rating: 4/5
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