Drop 7, while an encore for things to come, is merely a forerunner, not intended to be a masterpiece in itself; an audible reminder of her brilliance but not the best reflection of it.
By Patrick Ezema
Drop 7 is Little Simz’s newest addition to an already endowed discography. With a career spanning over twenty projects, Little Simz’s relatively young age and her “Best New Artist” win from 2022’s BRIT Awards should not obfuscate the fact that, at least in UK rap circles, the 31-year old Ajikawo Simbiatu (born in London to Nigerian parents) is already a veteran. Drop 1, the first EP of the series to which she made this most recent update, is now ten years old, and in the period since then, its creator has undergone tremendous growth, rising from outsider UK rapper to crown jewel of its industry. A lot of her current status was earned following the success of her 2021 album, Sometimes I Might Be Introvert, the sharply-cut hard-hitting missive with which she tackles societal ills and announced her reign.
No Thank You, released the following year, charted in this path, earning praise for its poignant social commentary. For Little Simz, however, her EPs and albums chart different timelines, so Drop 7 is more a sequel to Drop 6 than it is to the two full-length projects that intersperse them. But where Drop 6 had left off mellow and lightweight, Drop 7 picks up in a more experimental soundscape. She glides over seven tracks in uncharacteristic Simz fashion: letting the production take the lead while her restrained vocals fill the gaps. The downside to this arrangement is that without Simz’s regular biting commentary to arrest your attention, Drop 7 can appear unobtrusive to the point of being dull. To compensate, she sets aside her usual collaborator and long-time friend, Inflo, who produced her last three albums but none of the intervening EPs, favouring Jakwob and his affinity for electronic composition.
What Drop 7 has, though, is a lot of the unbothered self-assuredness that drives her previous works. “How can I walk in doubt?”, she sings on “Torch”, insisting that her “Pen can go for days”, over the chrome backdrop set by quick-paced drums. She allows for a measured indulgence into her newfound affluence, but even her bragging comes off as deserved and not empty: “I’m the only one that’s got my whip, they know it’s me in here”, she raps on “I Ain’t Feeling It”, before adding, “Lay up in my castle where it’s warm and sip my tea in it”. There is a lot of grandeur in Jakwob’s Hip-Hop production here, as Simz morphs pride in her current status into an assurance of the future: “Know some people waitin’ on the day for me to fail/ Never going back to bein’ broke, man, can’t you tell?” With the confidence she exudes as she speaks it, it is impossible to doubt her.
She packs most of her vim into “Power”, which at only one minute, is the album’s briefest cut. With no time to waste, Simz ensures every bar is both blithely cocky, yet incredibly honest: “Got the power in my hands, now I can feel it”, she begins, before announcing that “If I said that I’m the greatest then I mean it, mean it”. For a rapper who had to endure too long in the UK’s underground before the world finally got around to acknowledging her genius — due at least in part to her gender and race — Simz’s self-coronation is not as euphoric as you would expect, because none of the praise she receives now is news to her. Her name may only be entering the proper conversations in the last few years, but the self-awareness of her greatness has persisted as far back as her debut album when she proclaimed she was “Her”: I’m not an ordinary girl/ That was never my fate/ Is the heaven my place? I’m forever in space”.
Nearly ten years later, Simz has received confirmation of what she always knew. She’s gotten co-signs from Kendrick Lamar, Jay-Z, and J Cole, as well as the 3 million other people who make up her Spotify monthly listenership. “Can you believe that we made it this far?”, she asks on “Fever”, but the assured coolness of her voice betrays that this is only rhetorical. Other allusions to her status are littered throughout Drop 7: Vacations in Rio de Janeiro, new cars, “big, big money”, but something in her humble nature stops her from jettisoning into extravagant boasts of affluence as is common for Hip-Hop stars. This is also a function of her unsatisfied ambition: if she is intoxicated by her wins of the last few years, it may lull her into a false sense of completion. It is why she raps on “Fever” that she is “Still the same me that I’ve been from the start”. There is still a lot left to achieve.
So this EP, while an encore for things to come, is merely a forerunner, not intended to be a masterpiece in itself; an audible reminder of her brilliance but not the best reflection of it. It is a push into experimental fields for Simz, but knowing her, this change in pace is unlikely to indicate her future direction. She will soon return to the inquisitive, piercing and vital rap she attained all these accolades with, but in the meantime, Drop 7 is a welcome intermission as she settles into superstar status and toasts to a promising future.
Lyricism – 1.4
Tracklisting – 1.4
Sound Engineering – 1.5
Vocalisation – 1.4
Listening Experience – 1.2
Rating 6.9/10
Patrick Ezema is a music and culture journalist. Send him links to your favourite Nigerian songs @EzemaPatrick.