Interview: The rise and rise of Jorja Smith

During her days as a Starbucks barista, Jorja Smith would take the bus to London’s Waterloo Bridge and then walk the rest of the way to work. En route she’d pass Somerset House – a 17th century neoclassical structure that each summer has an unlikely second life as an outdoor music venue. Lily Allen and Amy Winehouse are among those to headline the ornate central courtyard. As she hurried by every morning, Smith promised herself that she would join that exalted club.

“And now I’m playing there this summer and I can’t wait,” says the English Midlands R&B sensation. “I used to get off the bus and walk past on the way to Starbucks. I remember thinking, ‘Wouldn’t it be great to play there?’”

She isn’t nervous about her dream coming true. Smith, it becomes quickly obvious over the course of her first ever Irish interview, doesn’t do nerves or self-doubt. She brims with self-belief all day long.

“I don’t get butterflies,” she shrugs. “I just get excited.”

Still, even her pulse quickened slightly when, on a visit to Los Angeles last year, she received a call from producer Sounwave on behalf of one Kendrick Lamar. Lamar was putting together the soundtrack to Marvel’s Black Panther and wanted to work with Smith. The resulting track, ‘I Am’, was written in just four hours and became a major calling card for Smith, and a highlight of the blockbuster movie.

“We clicked,” she recalls. “I got an Uber to the studio. We wrote the song and I went back to the hotel. Did I find it intimidating to be in the studio with Kendrick? No, I don’t find a lot of things intimidating.”

Smith is somewhat of a prodigy. Her first big hit, ‘Blue Lights’, was composed for a school project when she was 17. The song references the pandemic of police shootings in the United States and the racial profiling of grime concerts by authorities in the UK.

However, she takes issue with the idea that it is political. ‘Blue Lights’ is a commentary on the reality of life for many black people on both sides of the Atlantic. What’s political about reality?

“I like how you said it wasn’t a political song,” she says. “A lot of people say I wrote a political song. I didn’t. I don’t know a lot about politics.

“I wrote it because I watch the news and a lot of black people are shot by police in America. And, doing my media work, I was analysing post-colonialism in grime music.”

With ‘Blue Lights’ going viral – Spotify plays alone are well north of 25 million – Smith became a cause celebre within the R&B and hip hop community.

Drake took her on tour, bringing her on stage during his set to duet on ‘Get It Together’. And she supported Bruno Mars on one of his arena excursions. When she tells you that that she took both events in her stride, it’s clear that she isn’t merely spinning a line.

“It definitely helps,” says Smith. “It’s good if their fans like you too. Drake fans like me. Kendrick fans like me. It puts you in front off an audience that might not have heard your music.”

Her rise has the whiff of a foregone conclusion. By the time most of the world had heard of Smith, she had, after all, already been nominated for a Mobo for Best British Female Artist. Earlier this year, she followed up that accolade with the Brits Critics’ Choice Award (previous winners include Florence, Adele and Sam Smith).

Smith grew up in the British West Midlands town of Walsall, eight miles north of Birmingham. And while her parents were both musicians, neither had any experience of the big bad world of the modern entertainment industry.

Nor did Smith, who took a plunge into the unknown when, having finished school, she uprooted and relocated to London. “In Walsall everybody knows everybody. The reason I moved is that there isn’t a lot of opportunity for creativity.

“My dad played in a neo-soul group and was definitely a help. He’d say things like, ‘You can’t hear a chorus in that.’ So I’d go and write a chorus. But he wasn’t in a huge band. I didn’t know much about the business until I moved to London.”

Smith’s debut LP, Lost And Found, is creating significant tremors – it went to number three in the UK and topped the Irish independent charts. Featuring ‘Blue Lights’ and singles ‘Where Did I Go?’ and ‘Teenage Fantasy’, it’s a perfect appetite-whetter for her slot at Electric Picnic in September.

“The songs are slices of my life. You’re getting to know me a little bit more”, she says. “These are songs I have written from when I was 16 to 20. One day I said to my manager, ‘I want to write an album’. “He said, ‘Okay you’ve loads of songs – choose the ones you want’. It came together really quickly. The past few years have been quite mad. But I’ve really great people around me. It never feels as if it’s becoming too much.”

Lost And Found is out now. Jorja Smith plays Electric Picnic in September.