Consumer Guide Album

Little Simz: Grey Area [Age 101, 2019]
After two valiant, well-crafted, less than compelling albums, what struck me instantly about this London-born-and-based Nigerian rapper's third try was its musicality: soft-edged without slurring a word, her flow is ductile and refreshing, brooklike whether or not she's ever tromped in the woods. Yet it's also confident and even defiant without benefit of dancehall boom-bap. Peeved that she's got a career but not much more, the hard-touring 25-year old insists that she's a rapper, not merely a female rapper. And that's fine. But whether reporting that she's "a sensitive soul" or protesting that her jailed friend Ken has "a heart full of gold/Good intent with a smile so big," her virtues are female virtues even if they should be everyone's. How many males would begin a song claiming "L-O-V-E" is "something that I don't believe in" and end it "Was bound to end eventually/Still it hurts tremendously/Can't bear the intensity"? Not many--other males might mock them! Simz is clearly tough--has to be. But she's also clearly kind, and that's even tougher. A-