lotus by little simz

Hi friends,

Since this blog is new you guys need to know i do not play around when it comes to Little Simz. her new album came out yesterday and i've had it on repeat since. can't lie so far i think it is her weakest yet, judging by the ones i've listened of hers so far. I think the album still needs to grow on me because i thought the same of NO THANK YOU and I can say with utmost confidence that NO THANK YOU is my favorite album of all time, her cadence, the production (like i do not play around when it comes to the drums on 'Silhouette' and the trumpets on 'Gorilla'), the lyrics, just everything is the closest to perfection. Speaking of the production, Lotus lacks the producer of NO THANK YOU, why you're asking? Well her lifelong best friend and producer inflo stole 1.7 million from her. The album Lotus is all about dealing with this betrayal, the opening song 'Thief' is a fierce and angry song directed towards inflo. By far my favorite song on the project, with its powerful drums and felt lyrics about the damage of mental abuse. after 'Thief' the drums become even stronger with 'Flood', wherein the lyrics functions like a manual navigating building a career. another song that springs out to me is 'Blood' where Simz raps a dialogue with Wretch 32 between an out of touch brother and sister. It is a very touching portrayal of a grown apart adult sibling relationship. It is so crazy that you spend the earliest time of your life with someone and then you just dont see each other that often anymore. such a beautiful song about the connection that remains despite that. On the title track 'Lotus' Simz raps about the obsession people have towards artists for not "speaking up". We need to be real for a second, there is always injustice happening all over the world, speaking up about it is good and there are plenty artists who do but like im not really going to look at Little Simz to speak about every political issue ever, she is not a political speaker, what she knows to do best is to make beautiful art where she can express herself about whatever political topics she wants. There is a larger conversation to be had about this because i can tell that for example, the genocide in palestine, is used as a weapon in stan wars, that type of behavior is outright disgusting. Educate yourself, we do not need to only rely on artists explaining oppression to us, read a damn book!! And it is not like Little Simz is apathetic towards the state of the world: "I been saying the world's fucked from when I was twelve". these thoughts are pretty unfiltered so let me know what any of you think in the comments, im curious to hear about anyone that agrees/disagrees and why exactly. the final song on the project i want to talk about is 'Lonely' the penultimate song on the album. There is an interesting contrast present between the first two songs and the last two, the fierceness has been replaced by a calm more sad instrumental. on 'Lonely' Little Simz is vulnerable about her writers block and the gap that the betrayal of inflo has left on here creative process. I felt this song because i currently have a lot of issues focussing on my thesis, to the point i took an unsupervised dose of ritalin (do not ever do that you guys it is dumb). There is something deeply sad not being able to write something because your mental is sabotaging you, but im grateful she overcame her struggles and gave us another glorious album!

8.5/10

byeeeeeee