Little Simz Essentials

Even in the industrious, ever-evolving domain of UK rap, Little Simz stands out as daring and prolific, earning enthusiastic co-signs from Kendrick Lamar and Yasiin Bey. Mixtapes, EPs, and three studio albums—all released before her 26th birthday—have revealed the North Londoner to be a dazzling MC, an adventurous music maker, and an enthrallingly complex soul. She’s as incisive and poetic when she’s flaying music industry misogyny with scalpel-sharp wordplay (“Venom”) as when she’s exposing her own vulnerability and insecurity (“No More Wonderland”). And she does it all with the agility to flow over beats assembled from a full spectrum of grime, jazz, soul, funk, and electronic.