LITTLE SIMZ - Drop 6 12" (Blue Vinyl)

Label: Age 101

Little Simz third album, 2019’s acclaimed GREY Area, was her brassiest, most daring, and most profound work yet. But this year, finding herself locked down in London, where she lives alone, Simbi Ajikawo decided to go back to her roots with Drop 6: a gloomy meditation that proves she’s still spontaneous and self-reliant, if no longer carefree. Simz talked about how she pushed through a crisis of confidence to finish the EP in April, while lockdown was sparking mental-health issues. Struggling against “all that self-doubt shit I never imagined thinking,” she notes, “I gassed myself up. There’s no one else here, I’m alone, I had to.”

Drop 6 still contains deeply affecting moments—particularly when Simz lands on cautious, conditional optimism. At the EP’s end, on “where’s my lighter,” she looks ahead to the future and her “next masterpiece” while keeping one fearful eye on the present. Where the other songs are short and sharp, this one twists and turns through melancholia toward a lighter, softer promise that better days are still to come.