She became a global superstar in just one album. The Englishwoman Jorja Smith has just released her successor “Falling or Flying”, as a return to her roots, leaving the madness of London for her childhood town, near Birmingham.
She is only 26 years old and already has an unmistakable voice. For Jorja Smith, the beginnings were resounding, with “Lost and Found”, a stunning first album. In the process, she received collaboration proposals from the biggest: Drake and Kendrick Lamar, among others. Five years later, the Englishwoman released a successor on Friday September 29, “Falling or Flying”, impressive in its mastery and maturity.
During these five years, Jorja Smith has faced many personal storms, nourishing a second album thanks to which she says she has truly become a woman. “In this area, nothing has changed, confides the singer. I still make music the same way, but I’ve just grown and everything else has grown with me. I just love it, making music, I always knew that but maybe I had to go through certain phases to really understand it.”
At the top of this album produced by a duo of little-known young women, DameDame, is a track, “Try Me” [“vas-y, essaie” en français] like an affirmation, almost a threat from the one who is now scrutinized in her every move. “I always told myself that it would be the first track of the album, and even the one that would open my concerts, says Jorja Smith. In this song I talk about how being the center of media attention is difficult, especially when people have a lot to say about you. Today, people look at me a lot whereas before my first album, I was almost invisible.”
“I really missed home a lot”
Soul, r’n’b, dancehall… Jorja Smith plays with labels and infuses her eclectic tastes into her music, from open-air raves to underground parties in Birmingham or London. But it was on returning home to Walsall that she unlocked something. “I probably should have come back in 2020, at the time of confinement. I was in my apartment in London, and I told myself that it was no longer my home.”
“London was fantastic but I am who I am today because I was brought up in Walsall, adds Jorja Smith. DameDame had a studio in Birmingham, not far away, and after going there and seeing them, I realized that I really missed home a lot. I said to myself, ‘Come on, I’ll come home!'”. The fairly easily applicable beginnings, ultimately, of a breathtaking album.
Five years after global success, Jorja Smith returns with a new album – Report by Yann Bertrand