Tag: Jorja Smith

Day 60: Loose Ends by Loyle Carner ft. Jorja Smith

I really, REALLY wanted to not do this song. I’ve recently featured both of these artists individually, but when I heard it I had no choice. It is simply gorgeous.

Loyle Carner’s follow up to Ottolenghi (go back through the blog if you missed it) is called Loose Ends and is reflective and introspective about the state of his relationships past and present and how he wishes his current circle was there for him through previous struggles, most notably his father’s death. It was featured yesterday on Annie Mac’s Radio 1 show, Future Sounds, as her Hottest Record In The World and rightfully so.

During that interview, he talked about how he wrote it with New Zealander and frequent collaborator Jordan Rakei in the same session that Ottolenghi was written. It was actually Rakei’s decision to not jump on the song himself and allow Carner to collaborate with other artists and explore vocal compliments to his own, and boy has he found one in Jorja Smith.

They have been friends for a long time but never worked together, and it was worth the wait. The track is quite clearly a collaborative effort. It was developed with Jorja and Loyle Carner in the same room, tweaking lyrics and inflections to create a new template for singing and rapping hybrids. Jorja Smith is not an accessory to a Loyle Carner song, she is an organ within it, a functioning piece of the track as it ebbs and flows, and we can literally hear her contributions as Loyle Carner raps about his life.

Jordan Rakei produced this wonderfully, and if you are planning on looking out of a window forlornly, longing for sunshine back as it drizzles and rains into March then get this song playing. Not to rub it in, but I am off to hop on a plane to St. Lucia for a week now. Blog posts will still be coming, so look forward to another week of amazing tunes as we ease our way towards the end of the first quarter of 2019 and the first quarter of A Song A Day.

 

Spotify Playlist Link: https://spoti.fi/2CKuVex

Day 52: Blue Lights by Jorja Smith

Fresh off the back of her BRITS success last night in the Best British Female category, Jorja Smith delivers a standout modern masterpiece discussing the turbulent relationship between police and the young generation in Britain. Jorja has a song entitled February 3rd so I missed a trick there, but I think the day after a hugely successful night is not a bad second option for a February Jorja Smith showcase.

The song is off her BRIT nominated (I will stop soon I promise) 2018 album Lost and Found, though was released as her debut single after finding seismic success releasing her music on Soundcloud. The song is Jorja at her best, both vocally and with her songwriting. Her perfectly smooth RnB tones are wonderful and make the ideal pen to tell the story she has created.

Jorja acts as a passive observer, a narrator talking to a troubled youth. Her tone cleverly changes from one of repentance and development to one of self-preservation. She flips her stance 180, telling the faceless figure to run from the titular blue lights of police sirens that are in pursuit. The song is wrapped up seamlessly with a fitting sample from Dizzee Rascal’s 2007 song Sirens. Jorja borrows the line “better run when you hear the sirens coming” and it is a poignant, emotive reimagining of a song and a message that is all too relevant in a modern world plagued by police brutality.

For such a young artist, everything about her artistry shows levels of maturity scarce seen in veterans of ten years. Complex, full-bodied and genre fluid, she has tackled music creation with an art-first mindset and used her voice to reach millions. This 21-year-old star from Walsall has made fans out of Stormzy and Drake, and I think it will be scary how far she can go.

 

Spotify Playlist Link: https://spoti.fi/2CKuVex