Little Simz
Lotus
AWAL
Little Simz had to scrap several projects and endure a bitter legal battle with her childhood friend and recent creative collaborator Inflo over a $2.3 million loan she leant him before she finally found the right puzzle pieces to finalize Lotus, the UK rapper’s sixth LP which features the likes of Sampha, Moses Sumney, Little Dragon’s Yukimi, and others. Inflo and Little Simz’s partnership was a fruitful one, as they notably collaborated on Simz’s breakout 2019 LP GREY Area and the two records that followed—as well as Nine, the 2021 LP from Inflo’s neo-soul outfit SAULT—before their dispute and resulting legal battle soured their relationship.
Lotus is a product of Little Simz’s fractured personal and professional relationship. From this loss arose an opportunity to experiment with new ideas. Simz had to shed her old identity to create a new one from the ruins of both her former personality and initial vision for her music, while learning to accept creative growth and embrace the displacement of her familiar self when collaborating with Kokoroko producer Miles Clinton James for the first time. As a result, Lotus sees Little Simz blooming—a new growth from the same plant, hinting at the past, present, and future of the project, communicating all tenses simultaneously. While listening to Lotus, you can hear the familiar R&B-inspired production and the smooth flow of Simz’s past, the rock ’n’ roll drum-inspired beats and instruments from this present era, and the possible iterations this all can take in the future.
On several of Lotus’s songs, Simz uses live drumming to evoke intense frustration to back her equally aggressive lyrics. On “Thief,” a diss track that seems to be directed at Inflo, the intensity of the percussion increases the stakes of her gut-punching barbs. Her feelings of betrayal weigh heavily on the cut, which feels like the rapper’s cathartic roar. Lighter elements begin to creep in as the album progresses, evoking a more meditative emotional state. This climaxes mid-album with “Peace,” a sparse track largely built around guitar with light strings and piano sprinkled in, along with a repeating backup vocal sample that plays hypnotically and soothingly. “Hollow,” on the other hand, is more powerful. Although stripped down and layered with bright instrumentation, Simz’s flow is commanding but contemplative. “I accept life has its ways / But I don’t have to forgive to finally be OK,” she says fluidly, achieving a moment of clarity.
Powerful in its vulnerability, Lotus’s only downside is that some tracks feel jarring in their placement, such as the transition between “Flood” and “Young,” where heavier rock elements of the former clash with the more pop-infused latter. Still, Lotus is adventurous and emotional, creating intrigue in both sonics and lyrics.
