Little Simz, Alexandra Palace, review: The crowning of a special British talent

For Little Simz, this wasn’t just another gig. “Wow Alexandra Palace,” the 29-year-old rapper beamed as she looked out at a sea of 10,000 rapt faces. “I used to come ice skating here, crazy!”

 The north London-born Simbiatu Ajikawo talked us through her connection with her local venue: the family trips as a child; the time she opened for Jungle in 2019 just as her third album Grey Area gave her breakthrough acclaim. Now, decorated with a Mercury Prize win for 2021 album Sometimes I Might Be Introvert, a Brit Award and approval from Barack Obama, her own moment had come: Simz has sold out the enormodome twice over. “It really is possible,” she said on one of several follow-your-dreams asides.

It is when you’re as talented as Simz. Her music takes in a striking breadth of styles – hip hop, grime, soul, funk jazz, gospel, afrobeat, electronica – while her lyrical focus adeptly balances dextrous confessional vulnerability with flashes of bravado. She spills on everything from trauma, poverty, violence, mental health, racism, the introvert’s need for validation, family tension – the dense beat of “I Love You, I Hate You”, about her relationship with her sister, was an early highlight – and patriarchy, particularly the hierarchy of the music business and her struggle to get heard.

Simz’s skill is to take these particular experiences and make them accessible: it is easy to be swallowed up by Ally Pally’s hollow atmospherics, but on Friday night Simz triumphed by taking the crowd with her on an expertly constructed journey of self-discovery.

Fearlessly performing solo for the show’s first half – she attacked “might bang, might not” and “Venom” with rapid-fire sheer force – from the off she exuded effortless star power. Dressed to kill in black bomber jacket, oversized white shirt, black tie and black gloves, she swayed, shimmied and strutted around in total command – she was so at ease she signed autographs on the barrier mid-song; when she asked for a moment’s silence “for world peace”, you could hear a pin drop.

Behind her was a video production befitting her status, a hi-tech visual pattern of realistic yet artificial silhouettes that would come and go throughout; for the gospel opener of “Silhouette”, they formed a circled choir; during 2019’s council estate vignette “101 FM”, the silhouettes danced on top of hi-rise flats, helicopters flying overhead, a no doubt pointed show of how far Simz has come.

Simz was joined for the second half by two musicians who swelled out the sound skilfully. “Introvert”, Simz’s take on a big band orchestral anthem, sounded huge; the propulsive African rhythms of “Point and Kill”, featuring Simz on guitar, was a joy. The soulful ballad “Selfish” proved as swoonsome as ever.

Simz revealed towards the end that she’d been under the weather and needed help to push through: it came in the shape of Cleo Sol, who duetted on call-to-arms “Woman”, while for the closing “Gorilla”, an utterly brilliant liquid groove from 2022’s surprise fifth album No Thank You. The crowd duly obliged, bellowing back the track’s tracing of humble beginnings to rap stardom.

“London, I need you to understanding you’re witnessing greatness,” Simz said at one point. On a night that felt like the crowning of a special British talent, nobody was arguing.