Though she has long been one of the UK’s most gifted rappers, 2019 will go down as the year the stars finally aligned for Little Simz.
First came Grey Area — the unanimously acclaimed third LP that earned the British-Nigerian MC and multi-instrumentalist a Mercury Prize nomination — followed by her stellar performance as Shelley in Drake’s Top Boy reboot for Netflix. By rights this homecoming show should have been a straightforward victory lap, but for Simz the stakes were still sky high, finding her admitting before the encore: “I’ve been on tour for so long and this is the show I was most nervous about.”
Despite the confession, there was no trace of nerves last night. Bounding onstage to the elastic bass groove of Boss, megaphone in hand, the 25-year-old and her three-piece band powered through a succinct set list, skewed in favour of songs from Grey Area.
The laidback shimmy of Selfish proved the night’s biggest crowd-pleaser, with a particularly vitriolic version of Venom coming a close second, finding Simz drenched in green light and spitting lightning-fast bars with dizzying dexterity. Departing with the unapologetic swagger of Offence, it was a powerful performance from an artist rapidly earning her right to be deemed UK rap royalty.
