Daily Tune: Little Simz – Good For What

Little Simz might be the best MC in the UK right now, there, I said it. Caught almost perfectly between the two families of grime and UK hip-hop, she’s steadfastly continued to do her own thing, and do it brilliantly.

Her influence extends across the Atlantic now, having caught the attention of Andre 3000, Joey Bada$$ and even Kendrick, she’s toured extensively in the US and now she’s released a new track, produced by Astronote and complete with a video shot in LA and directed by an LA local – Duy Nguyen.

It’s set to drop as a part of the deluxe edition of her most recent album – Stillness in Wonderland – but it lives in a markedly different world to the other material on the album. Gone are the misty dreamscapes and grand lyrical constructs, replaced with a beat that falls somewhere in between grime and trap, with matching vocal rapidity. Likewise, the video sees Simz cruising through the streets of LA, or sat in a kitchen surrounded by haze and Hennessy. This is very much a bridging track, and it almost fells like Simz is addressing the US hip-hop crowd directly – “Here I am, remember my name.”

It’s never wise to try and map the trajectory of an emerging artist, but it’s also hard to imagine a hip-hop world three years from now that doesn’t have Little Simz somewhere near the top of it. She’s making all the right moves, but she’s also not compromising the aspects of her approach which brought her this far in the process. Few rappers at her level would have the wherewithal to dedicate a track on their breakout album to their next door neighbour, or make a surprise appearance at a BadBadNotGood show in North London, just for the hell of it. It’s comforting to think that even when she’s five or six albums deep with a Kendrick Lamar collaboration and a main stage slot at Coachella under her belt, Simz will still be Simz.