Despite a best-new-artist win at the 2022 BRIT Awards, Little Simz is anything but new — she has been honing her artistry for at least a decade. When music discovery on the internet still involved active user participation rather than passive algorithmic feeding, a SoundCloud listener might find her 2013 mixtape, “Blank Canvas,” and hear her serrated, cerebral rapping over familiar beats, such as Mos Def’s “Mathematics,” on the hungry “Subject Matters.”
Now, at 29, her nimble cadence can coil around and slice through even more musical influences and soundscapes, including high-life rhythms, springy synths and head-pounding grime, gifts that came into focus with 2021’s cinematic and personal album, “Sometimes I Might Be Introvert.”
There was a planned North American tour to follow, but she postponed it amid financial concerns. Before 2022’s end, she released her latest album, “NO THANK YOU,” an unflinching work that both castigated the music industry and undertook more internal excavations.
When Little Simz (born Simbiatu “Simbi” Ajikawo) was growing up in north London, she nurtured her performing arts interests at a local youth center. It was there she met music producer Inflo, who worked with her on her last three albums and who helms the R&B collective Sault. Ever the avid storyteller, Little Simz also racked up acting credits from a young age, her most well-known appearance so far was as Shelley in the Netflix revival of “Top Boy.”
As an onstage raconteur, Little Simz shared an easy energy with the audience, her flow more voltaic and precise in live performance. The show’s powerful opener, “Silhouette,” dispelled the shadows that threatened to engulf her light. She asked whether she could “turn it up” and launched into the head-thrashing “might bang, might not” — it does — followed by a heart-pounding transition into the nostalgic and potent “101 FM.” The sinuous “Point and Kill” had concertgoers singing the defiant hook as Little Simz grooved on a guitar. The celebratory “Woman” closed the show with a united two-step.
