How Little Simz Found Her Way Back to the Light

Vogue

4 hours ago

There are definitely some songs that are clearly rooted in some dark nights of the soul for you, and you've talked about experiencing a real lack of self-belief at certain points in the process. Did writing this music, and expressing all those different parts of yourself that you mentioned, help you overcome that?
Yeah, totally. I think even when I was making it, I was still in that space. It's only when I had finished it, to be honest, that I was like, 'Oh, wow. I actually got this done.' When I was in it, I just had to trust the process. I was like, 'I don't even know if this stuff is good, but let me finish it and then I can cross that bridge when I get to it.' I couldn't keep doing this start-stop-y thing—I had to actually just finish a project. I could only really see what was in front of me at the time, and so I just focused on that. I wasn't trying to see into the future, to think about the music videos or how I might perform a song. I just kept focused on this Pro Tools session, or this lyric book, or whatever was in front of me. Then by the time we had it done, I was like, 'Oh wow, that's cool.' [Laughs.] I just hope I'm being heard. There was all this worry, but I've done the best I can do. I put my heart on my sleeve and I just tried to make an honest album.
One of the things that struck me when listening to the album is your incredible ability to be very specific about your experiences, while also framing them in a way that feels universal—'Thief' springs to mind as a powerful example of that, as even though it's about a particular experience in your life, I found myself thinking about similar situations in my own life rather than parsing the song for details about what might have happened in your life. Is that something you consciously think about when writing? Do you have to labor over that a little to get the balance right?
I appreciate that, man. I'm glad you feel that way. I guess all we're trying to do in life is relate, and connect with each other. And the same way you feel about my music is the same way I feel about the artists that I listen to, and when they talk about what they're going through it gives me goosebumps, or makes me cry, or makes me feel happy, even. So I am mindful of talking about my own experience. With a song called 'Thief,' people who know my situation or whatever might think, 'Oh, okay, she's talking about something material that someone has physically stolen.' But I deliberately tried to make it open—it can be about feeling like you've been robbed of your time, your energy, your resources, whatever it is. Some of this stuff is really heavy. And if you can relate, you can relate. But if you can't, I understand that as well.