Walsall, UK · r&b · soul

Jorja Smith

2 festivals played ↓

Walsall's great modern soul voice — restrained, jazz-schooled, and equally at home over a garage beat, 'Blue Lights' still stunning.

Jorja Smith was born in Walsall in 1997 to a Jamaican father and an English mother; her father sang in a neo-soul group called 2nd Naicha before she was born. She began writing songs at eleven, started piano at eight, and held a music scholarship at Aldridge School, where she studied oboe and classical singing.

A friend's upload of her singing Labrinth's "Earthquake" caught the attention of producer Guy Moot, and by fifteen she was travelling to London for writing sessions with Maverick Sabre and Ed Thomas. She moved to London at eighteen and worked as a barista while she kept writing.

She released "Blue Lights" in 2016, an early single that sampled Dizzee Rascal's "Sirens" and addressed policing and racial profiling, drawing attention well beyond the UK. Drake named her follow-up, "Where Did I Go?," his favourite track that year, and she placed fourth on BBC's Sound of 2017 list before joining his Boy Meets World tour and appearing on his mixtape More Life.

Her debut album, "Lost & Found," followed in 2018, after which she won the Brit Critics' Choice Award; she was named British Female Solo Artist at the Brit Awards in 2019 and received a Grammy nomination for Best New Artist the same year. A third EP, Be Right Back, arrived in 2021.

Her singing is understated and rhythmically precise, drawing on soul and jazz phrasing, and she moves comfortably between neo-soul, R&B and UK dance styles including garage and drum and bass. She has collaborated with Drake, Kendrick Lamar and Burna Boy.

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