Little Simz has returned with her sixth full-length studio album Lotus, and its title tells you everything you need to know before hitting play. It’s an album about emergence — how something beautiful can grow out of something else that has been tarnished. For Simz, that “something else” is the fallout from a collapsed creative partnership with her former producer Inflo, subsequent legal battles, and years of unreleased material scrapped entirely. Lotus doesn’t sound like a comeback, but instead sounds like survival. It’s measured, unsentimental, and at times, angry enough to burn through the speakers.
The album’s opening track is called “Thief,” and it’s exactly what it sounds like: a direct reckoning. The beat’s restrained, almost dry, leaving plenty of space for Simz to put Inflo on notice. She’s not hiding the pain, but she’s not drowning in it either. It’s a form of confrontation as closure. From there, the album starts to twist and pull: “Flood” (with Obongjayar and Moonchild Sanelly) hits like the emotional purge it’s named after. It’s anxious and cathartic in equal measure, featuring a Simz that seems as determined as ever in her blooming career. The closing four tracks on the album are as impressive of a run as Simz has ever had in her career — “Blood” is genius narrative, “Lotus” is desperate and direct in its instrumentation, and “Lonely” is as vulnerable as Simz has ever been.
There’s no moment on Lotus where things “resolve.” Even when the production softens, the weight doesn’t lift. “Blue” is one of the quietest moments toward the end of the record, and yet it’s still one of the heaviest. Sampha shows up with the exact voice you’d want for a song like this, just above a whisper, but it’s Simz who brings the emotion. She’s not just rapping about being tired, she sounds tired: of the industry, of betrayal, and of people expecting strength from her without ever asking the cost.
Production-wise, she keeps things stripped back — sometimes jazzy, sometimes grimy, but never too flashy. There’s still orchestration like we’ve grown to love on her previous records, but it’s lighter, less cinematic than her past work with Inflo. That decision feels deliberate. Nothing on this album is trying to impress you. Even the features — Wretch 32, Michael Kiwanuka, Yussef Dayes — show up more like collaborators than guests. They feel part of the architecture, not ornaments. This isn’t the album where Simz tells you how brilliant she is. It’s the one where she tells you what it cost to get to this point, further cementing the authenticity that makes her discography so authentic and magnetic.
Lotus doesn’t aim for closure, and it doesn’t pretend healing is linear. There’s no grand finale. Instead, it circles its own themes — grief, resilience, fatigue, clarity — and sits with them. That restraint is what makes it feel so human. Simz isn’t performing strength; she’s documenting the process of rebuilding it. It’s an album that offers no solutions, only honesty. And in a moment when the music industry is loud and everything is instant, Lotus feels like Simz choosing to speak slowly, carefully, and only when it really matters.
Favorite tracks: “Thief” — “Flood” — “Free” — “Lion” — “Blood” — “Lotus” — “Lonely” — “Blue”
SCORE: 9.4/10