Amy Winehouse and Lauryn Hill. ‘I used to go straight home from
school and write songs,’ she says. ‘I didn’t really go out. I spent most
of my birthdays by myself.’ In part, she thanks her parents – her
mother, Jolene, is a jewellery designer, and her father, Peter, is a musi-
cian turned benefits officer – for her strong work ethic, but says, ‘I
also choose to be like that. I’m the type to just get on with it.
I’ll probably end up making myself sick working so hard.’ Despite
her mesmeric beauty, Smith admits she was insecure as a teenager.
‘My mum’s white and my dad’s black, so I didn’t see many girls who
looked like me when I was growing up,’ she says. ‘I didn’t want to
tan because all my friends were white, and they were skinny and
had long blonde hair, and I had lips and a bum. It wasn’t until I moved
to London that I felt comfortable with myself.’
Her big break came in January 2016, six months after she relo-
cated to the capital, when she was supporting herself as a Starbucks
barista. Her first single ‘Blue Lights’ went viral on the music platform
Soundcloud, accruing nearly half a million streams within a month.
The song, hinged on a sample from the Dizzee Rascal track ‘Sirens’,
was inspired by an A-level media-studies essay she was working on,
titled ‘Is Postcolonialism Still Present In
Grime Music? ’, and her own day-to-day
experiences as a mixed-race teenager. ‘I’d
walk down the street with my friends and
they’d always be looking over their shoul-
ders, so I just wrote about that,’ she says.
‘My point was, why should you have a
guilty conscience if you’ve done nothing
wrong? ’ It was this powerful storytelling
that caught the eye of the Canadian rapper
Drake, who asked Smith to sing on his
track ‘Get It Together’. Initially, she
declined. ‘I really liked it, but I hadn’t
written it, so I didn’t connect to the lyrics,’
she says. ‘But then I split up with my boy-
friend of the time and I listened back to the
song and understood it.’ Luckily, there was
still time for her to record it for Drake’s
album. ‘So, it worked out well,’ she says, ‘but you can’t just do stuff
for the hell of it, you genuinely have to love what you’re doing.’
Smith’s success is all the more remarkable considering that she
isn’t backed by a major label, but this too is entirely of her choosing.
‘I love my team and I like what we’re doing, so why do I want
to change that just yet? I’m honest and real, and I keep myself
grounded – I don’t want a big head.’ And with that, Jorja Smith says
her goodbyes and walks away, a music icon in the making, marching
to the beat of her own drum.‘I’ve been
singing since
I was eight and
writing songs
from eleven, and
I just haven’t
stopped ’
It’s barely 11 o’clock in the morning, but on set with Jorja Smith for
the Bazaar photo-shoot there’s an atmosphere befitting a glittering,
late-night party. Poised and purposeful in vertiginous Dolce &
Gabbana heels and a bejewelled headpiece, the British singer-
songwriter takes up her position in front of the camera, swaying
seductively to the bass-heavy tracks that blare from the studio’s
speakers. It’s an energy familiar to those
who watched her perform at Glastonbury
- the pinnacle of a glorious career-defining
year that saw her win the Brit award for
British Female Solo Artist and be named
Dior’s new global make-up ambassador,
following in the footsteps of Natalie
Portman and Bella Hadid. ‘I don’t really
have goals or dreams because I don’t like
being disappointed, but I’m definitely
living a dream,’ she tells me later, having
changed into a Nike sports bra and leg-
gings. ‘I’m going straight to yoga,’ she
explains. ‘I’ve been doing it for a month
now, but I used to hate it because I like
doing things fast.’
Indeed, at 22, Smith has achieved more
than most people do in a lifetime. In 2018,
she became the first unsigned artist to receive the Critics’ Choice
prize at the Brit Awards – proven to be an accurate indicator of
impending superstardom if you look at previous winners such as
Adele, Florence + the Machine and Sam Smith. Her debut album
Lost & Found was a global success story, earning both Grammy
and Mercury nominations, and this summer’s follow-up single ‘Be
Honest’ showcases the smoky, sultry vocals that inspired previous
collaborations with artists including Stormzy and Kendrick Lamar.
Smith’s rise to household-name status may seem swift, but she
was putting pen to paper at an early age. ‘I’ve been singing since
I was eight and I’ve been writing songs from 11, and I just haven’t
stopped,’ she says. ‘I released my first song in 2016, so it has gone
quite quickly, but it doesn’t feel like I’ve rushed into anything. I think
I’ve always been like that, just ready for something.’
Smith grew up in Walsall, an industrial area between Wolver-
hampton and Birmingham, listening to the music of her heroines