Listened: The pop albums of the week with Little Simz, Low, Tommy Genesis, Kacey Musgraves, Spencer.

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Rapper Little Simz

Photo: Nwaka Okparaeke

Album cover of "Sometimes I Might Be Introvert"

The state in which US hip-hop usually sets the tone has become impressively clear in the last two weeks, because two superstars of the genre have taken the liberty of releasing new albums: Kanye West and Drake.

One of them drunk with Jesus (and himself), the other only with himself. Everything is very, very boring.

Until the eagerly awaited return of Kendrick Lamar (and Frank Ocean) one can confidently turn away from these dudes - and turn one's gaze to Great Britain, where the perhaps more interesting and urgent hip-hop, soul and R&B have been producing for some time will. Among other things by the now 27-year-old rapper Little Simz from London, who with her fourth album has now released something like the feminine counterpart to Kanye's opus magnum "Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy" - only that her vision is not twisted, i.e. perverted or is screwed up, but straightforward and clear. "Sometimes I Might Be Introvert", with orchestral swing, strings, spoken word interludes and James Bond drama, has the effect of a noble HBO or Netflix drama about Women's Liberation.It is the lyrically introverted, musically adventurous manifesto of a pop artist who has found herself more and more - and now consistently expands and paints the limits of her previously monochrome creative cosmos.

Researching, sometimes brave, sometimes shy, always driven by social frustration, private pain and a harrowing, violent and fatherless biography in north London, she embarks on an elegant campaign of empowerment that could bring her crown, scepter and throne of her genre in the near future . Her popular colleague Stormzy, who also comes from the grime scene, already suspected this in his track “Superheroes” after seeing Simz on stage, an angry elemental force rapping at speed: “See her on stage, I know that women can be kings, ”he rapped in awe two years ago.

So far, the rapper, whose real name is Simbiatu »Simbi« Abisola Abiola Ajikawo and has Nigerian roots, has primarily served as an anger repellent, most recently on her nervous album »Gray Area«, in whose tracks she deals with corruption, class society, capitalist hardship, racism and settled the toxic patriarchy: hard grooving, relentlessly poisonous rhyming.

All the more surprising that she is now taking off her armor and revealing her vulnerable side, her struggle, to achieve inner strength. The longing, luxurious soul music to go with it was again produced by her long-term partner Inflo, who recently caused a sensation with the anonymous British band Sault. "Sometimes I Might Be Introvert" occurs in the same resonance space of Marvin Gaye, Billie Holiday, "Black Lives Matter" and contemporary British wokeness prose.

But the battle tracks are rarer this time, actually with »Speed« there is only one one that inspires with rubbery beats and announcements of battle against rap machos. Two tracks towards the end of the album pay tribute to Ajikawo's African origins with Afro beats and chants analogous to her clothes and hairstyle on the cover. »Woman« encourages women like her, who are thrown onto the streets of London from Nigeria, Tanzania or Ethiopia, to reflect on their »Glow«, »pressure makes diamonds, don't fold«, it says at one point Interlude »Gems« - every woman is a diamond in the rough; the constant pressure of the male world, of the circumstances, only makes them stronger, more sublime and more beautiful ... if they can assert themselves. Simz puts this soundtrack on your soul.In the video clip they have already occupied a mansion and captured the regalia of the nobility.

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Little Simz

Sometimes I Might Be Introvert (Digipack)

Label: AWAL-AGE 101

Label: AWAL-AGE 101

approx. € 14.99

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09/10/2021 8:20 p.m.

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Interestingly, it is not Simz himself who speaks these recurring words of mindfulness in a slow, almost therapeutic voice, but the white actress Emma Corrin, who last played Princess Diana in the series "The Crown", nor an introverted woman who had to learn to learn to enforce in a rigid world full of royal rules. Corrin appears several times like a spirit of repressed depression in posh England and its complex traditions, one who even welcomes the proud rap princess from the precariat for tea in the salon ("The Rapper That Came To Tea").

So it's also about solidarity with women across music genres, classes and ethnicities in this call to unity, the Simz to fanfares, Hollywood choirs and disturbing marching beats formulated in »Introvert«: »As long as we're unified we 've already won'.

The palace walls are already shaking.

(9.0)

Listened briefly:

Low - "Hey What"

White horses are symbolic, again and again in pop, for the triumph of good over evil, enlightenment and enlightenment.

So it's a relief in the dark that Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker pour their ever soothing voices into a melodic mantra on the first track of this distorted and noisy 13th low album: »Still, white horses take us home«.

The rest, like on "Double Negative", is comforting and sad folk singing, embedded in the electrostatic, harsh noise of the present.

Cathartic, even without guitars.

(8.5)

Tommy Genesis - "Goldilocks X"

All bears should watch out for this goldilocks: "I can bleach my hair but can't escape my roots" postulates Tommy Genesis right at the beginning of their very entertaining second album in the juicy "Peppermint".

Genesis (who really is called that) remains Canada's most talented, fearless, and versatile fetish rapper.

In contrast to her self-confident, sex-positive verses about “juicy pussys”, the US colleagues sound quite chaste with her “WAP” shocker - and by “Fuck men” in the grandiose track “Men” she doesn't mean the physical act. Rhythms and pop hooks and indie rock on the rickety beats skeleton.

Why is she still an underground star?

(8.0)

Kacey Musgraves - "Star-Crossed"

Traditionally, big pop albums are often created in the pain of separation, with Kacey Musgraves, the celebrated country innovator from Texas, it seems to be the other way around: Her triumphant Grammy winner "Golden Hour" was created during a phase of greatest happiness, "Star-Crossed" now after a divorce that happened too quickly.

Maybe it's all a bit much: the pop fame, the private crisis, the claim to create a Shakespeare tragedy in »Jolene« mode that doesn't sound like Nashville stink, but like LA and the modern charts.

Too serene, too lovely and tidy to break your heart.

(7.0)

Spencer.

- "Are U Down?"

If you have Miles Davis in your name, like Spencer Miles Abraham Allen, a 22-year-old musician from Brooklyn's hipster hood Bed-Stuy, the pressure to succeed should be immense. Amazingly, Spencer could. But on his summery, dreamlike debut, his urban brew of soul, R&B, jazz and indie pop is so delightfully elastic, as if it had been shaped into sweet syrup by the New York City heat, which is enjoyable and aimless wants to bubble in all directions. Impossible to rush through the streets quickly and hectically when you have that hypermodern retro sound in your Walkman. The newest Rebirth of Cool. (7.8)