Little Simz - Sugar Girl EP Review
Little Simz sharpens her electronic edge on Sugar Girl, delivering a confident, feature-packed EP built on movement, ambition and absolute self-belief.
Little Simz has always insisted on being seen in her multitudes. Looking over the London-born, Mercury Music Prize winner’s accolades over the past decade, it’s easy to see why. With a healthy award collection, several acting credits, a Miu Miu runway, and legend status at just 32, that refusal to stay in her own lane is what’s fed such an impressive career trajectory. “You are witnessing greatness,” she promised a crowd from the Pyramid Stage of Glastonbury 2024, and she’s yet to be proven wrong. To have achieved so much and still give off the air of someone just getting warmed up is no mean feat, but on new feature-heavy EP Sugar Girl, that’s exactly what Simz does.
When large artists break the expectations of the album cycle by releasing an EP, it reinforces two things: a genuine passion for the craft, and a fanbase who will eagerly listen to anything they’re given. On this just four-track long record, Little Simz plays with sound and collaboration, but in no way is this a practice run. She’s no stranger to genre-twisting, having always been known for broadening the scope of experimental hip-hop, and that prowess is clear straight off the bat. The crisp, heavy sound on opening track ‘That’s a No No’ immediately sets the unshakeable tone of the record. She showcases a new dimension to her sound with a hard autotune taunt, hissing “Lost count of all the bitches I influenced”. It has much of the military swagger of Sometimes I Might Be Introvert, the universally lauded UK Top 5 album that pushed Simz into the limelight, but with an electronic rather than brassy edge, and a flavour of Yeezus in its heavy beat. A theme in her discography is relentless work, the graft of genius, and this EP is no different, with the refrain “day in, day out” cycled between the verses.
This new record leans further into movement and dance as last year’s album, Lotus, had begun to do. Like many artists at the moment, Simz has built on club textures throughout this release, and particularly on ‘Game On (ft. JT)’, first debuted at Coachella where JT joined Little Simz on stage for a surprise performance. It’s clear to see where this leaning into the electronic has come from, with the artist having hosted several DJ sets over the past couple of years, and she’s taken to the genre with an impressive team behind her. Renowned producer Jakwob (who’s collaborated with artists like Nia Archives, Shygirl, Erin LaCount) is back once again to bring Simz’ vision to life. Like ‘That’s a No No’, laser-littered ‘Game On’ is punchy and defiant, but more danceable. It’s the perfect drink-in-one-hand summer night track- that’s the JT effect. Since her time as one half of the City Girls, JT’s career has been a huge success, with several viral upbeat tracks including ‘Okay’ and ‘Ran Out’. Her recent single ‘Numb’ follows this pattern of catchy, punchy affirmation anthems, and precedes a debut solo album teased to be full of collaborations this summer. In her Sugar Girl feature, she’s at her energetic best. “I’m so tea, I support the trans”, she confirms here, a sentiment she never allows fans to forget- she’s repeatedly advocated for the trans community in interviews, on stage, in fundraising efforts, and in her lyrics.
On ‘Open Arms (ft. DEELA)’, a manifesto for persistence, steady, soaring electronica blends with afrobeat to build emotion and momentum. DEELA, originally from Lagos and now based in London, repeats the Yoruba hook: “Ó yá, dìde, dìde, dìde”, which translates as “Come on, get up, get up, get up”. The song’s sound mimics the repetitive hustle of striving for something, of holding yourself to a high standard. It gets old, and it gets tiring, but it continues regardless. It’s in the final track ‘Telephone (ft. 070 Shake)’ that the constant grind is paused and exchanged for romance, or at least something that resembles it. Simz makes the case for the addressee to see her value, what she can offer that others can’t; “Don’t call your girl, call me,” she instructs, reaping the rewards of her self-confessed greatness. Within an album of uncompromising confidence, it feels like a moment of slight vulnerability, placing that victory lap in context- what does it mean to be so remarkable when the person you want is with someone else? There’s a moment of hollowness in asking someone to see you the way you see yourself to appreciate your worth. The searing electric guitar and bass twang, now almost synonymous with Shake, is an enriching addition to the track. It’s a perfect way to close an EP defined by its strong pulse and dynamic production.
Ahead of a packed festival season, including her first hometown festival headline at home show Cross The Tracks, London, this release shows that Little Simz is entirely comfortable with her own status. As always, she’s virtuosic in her domain, and, from one record to the next, her domain is whatever she deems it to be. For an artist to delve into other pursuits like acting and fashion whilst maintaining a pristine reputation for putting out music of such a consistently high calibre is rare, and the fact that Simz knows it just further fattens the impact of her art. This is experimental hip-hop (and beyond) at its best. Little Simz has nothing to prove; she just came to show that she’s settled into her throne.