NO THANK YOU Little Simz Review: The English rapper Little Simz’s fifth studio album, NO THANK YOU, came out on AWAL Recordings on December 12, 2022. The album was announced a week before it came out as a surprise, and it didn’t have any lead singles.

NO THANK YOU Little Simz Review

Just a few months after her album Sometimes I Might Be Introvert won the Mercury Prize, Simbiatu Ajikawo is still one of rap’s most influential voices.

Even though it’s a prestigious award, winning the Mercury Prize has been bad for several artists since it started in the 1990s. The pressure is building: how will the artist grow and change now that the British music industry has given them a big thumbs up?

Little Simz’s answer came very quickly, and she is still using the same style, but she is getting better and better on the unexpected and definitely not Christmassy No Thank You.

Nearly every verse has memorable lines about self-determination, creative freedom, and inner happiness, like the fiery kiss-off to corporates on “No Merci” or Simz’s powerful testimony on mental health that defines “Broken.”

This is backed by great production from Inflo, combining warm chords, rootsy percussion, and many orchestral flourishes. This is great for the album’s flow as a whole since even classic rap albums sometimes just “let the beat ride.” Instead, No Thank You has some show-stopping endings.

Away from the mainstream of nighttime synth loops and laser-sharp rhythms in British rap, the group gets a lot of ideas from old-school American hip-hop, like the smooth Ramsey Lewis sample on “Gorilla.”

Simz is showing off on this track with some name drops of legends and harsh words for gossip. Her delivery alone is enough to make it a standout on the record.

Sideways, on the other hand, is abrasive, with blasts of distorted chipmunk soul that come in like an obscure Madlib vignette, while the verses sound more like they were made up on the spot.

Silhouette talks about relationship problems in the style of Lauryn Hill’s “Lost Ones,” and “Who Even Cares” is a second-person story about Simz’s rise to fame told through auto-tuned earworms: “When you stopped going to college, they told you you need the knowledge, but the work didn’t make you better, so you live your life modestly, in reality’s promise that your dreams ain’t coming true.”

After this, Control is the last song on the album. It’s more about love than the rest of the album, but that makes it feel even more personal.

No Thank You could be mistaken for a victory lap, but it is a success in its own right and solidifies Little Simz as one of the strong motivations in rap.

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My name is Gourav Singh, and some of my favorite hobbies include watching movies and television series, playing sports, and listening to music. For my blog posts, I prefer to write about themes that are lighthearted and fun to read and write about. To keep things light and entertaining, I'll include funny observations on life or a summary of the most recent entertainment news. Check out my blog if you're in the mood for some light entertainment.