Jorja Smith was born in Walsall, West Midlands, on 11 June 1997, she’s a UK singer with a soulful voice and has released numerous singles and made several features on other artists songs. In 2016 Smith independently released and extended play, “Project 11”. She is widely known for her songs like “Blue Lights” and “Where Did I Go?”, and the music video for her song “A Prince” has accumulated over 300,000 views on YouTube.
Jorja smith was brought up on a variety of musical boxsets including Curtis Mayfield and Damian Marley, and in secondary school Smith was classically trained as a vocalist. She wrote her first song called “Life is a Path Worth Taking” when she was just 11 years old. Smith was part of a music group called “OGHORSE”, and began releasing music online, gaining the approval of her dad who was part of a neo-soul group named “2nd Naicha”. Smith has been performing since the age of 8 and writing songs since 11, amassing a broad catalog of mostly unreleased tracks that range from pop to modern soul. One of the earliest songs Smith remembers writing was called “High Street,” about when all the stores in her hometown of Walsall closed during the economic recession of the late 2000’s, this left an empty and hollow town. Smith described Walsall as a place with “a lot of creative people, but not many possibilities.”
Her dad who raised her on a diet of reggae, rock, and soul, which added to her own loves of funky house and dubstep. She said her father “realized she had a talent when he heard her sing “Silent Night” in church”. It was then her dad encouraged her to learn piano, and she later won a music scholarship to a local school where she took classical singing lessons. From her early teens, she relied on her faith in music that it would offer her a route out of her home town. A friend filmed her singing Alex Clare’s 2011 U.K. hit “Too Close” and uploaded it to YouTube, the video was passed around school so much that older girls would stop her in the halls and demand that she start singing. She was 15 when the clip was sent to her current managers, who contacted her from London. By time she had finished her exams Smith had already written up to 70 songs.
At the tender age of 18 Jorja Smith released her first single called “Blue Lights”, where she uploaded it to SoundCloud along with “A Prince” featuring Maverick Sabre and “Where Did I Go?”, which artist/rapper Drake chose as his favorite track of the moment. “Blue Lights” a song that uniquely mixes grime’s grit with a softer plea for empathy, quickly hit regular rotation on local London radio. This also led to Smith appearing on two songs on Drake’s 2017 album “More Life”. Her successful 2016 year ended with her first body of work, “Project 11”, a 4-track EP covering a variety of matters and musical styles. “Blue Lights” managed to become a hit being nominated at the MOBO Awards for Best New Song. Drake’s support though didn’t end there as she also joined the rapper on his UK tour of Birmingham and London.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i59Klb0S1Uw
A various collection of unreleased songs followed including the Great Gatsby-inspired song “Beautiful Little Fools”, as well as the politically charged song “Lifeboats” where she dabbled into her first rap verse with distinct confidence. Shortlisted for the BBC’s Sound of 2017 award, winner of the Brits critics’ choice award in December, and due to feature on Kendrick Lamar’s soundtrack for Marvel’s Black Panther movie, Smith’s ascension to pop stardom has been secured by her strong sense of self. Smith’s music has gained comparisons to that of Lauryn Hill and Prince and is described as “introspective soul”.
In January 2018 Smith won the Brit Critics’ Choice Award, which is an award given by the British Phonographic Industry. This prestigious award had some big winners previously including Adele, Florence and the Machine, Sam Smith and Rag’n’Bone Man. In January 2018, was when Jorja Smith was going to an international name, she teamed up with UK rapper Stormzy on the dark and moody song “Let Me Down”. It’s the first single taken from Smith’s untitled debut album which is due out later this year. Smith spoke about the song on Zane Lowe’s Beats 1 radio show saying “I remember I was in studio with producer Ed Thomas, and he was playing the chords on the piano and I was singing, and Stormzy kind of drifted in and out – that’s kind of what he does on the verse. It was just beautiful and magical. I think we made a really special moment, and he’s such a nice guy. Stormzy like floated into the room, like came on the track – it’s magic. That was 2016, and then I was in the studio with Ed and he came through to the session, but I had already wrote the beginning of it and then we just left verse 2. Stormzy was so late, so late. But it was cool because his verse made up for it and he is sick.”
“Let Me Down” is a song about meaning very little to someone, but being okay with that, even though it hurts. Smith said that the song was inspired by her dream of writing a James Bond theme song. “When I am writing music I sometimes envision a video playing alongside. ‘Let Me Down’ does sound quite Bond-y: you can imagine it during a scene when James Bond has gone down into an underground, dimly lit, secret bar and he approaches the Bond girl who is sitting at the bar looking very guilty because she’s done something bad and let him down.”
Jorja Smith is without a doubt is going to be the next hottest act in music, both in the UK and internationally. But at just 20 years of age even she admits she has learnt alot about the industry as she explains in an interview with Noisey stating “What I’m doing at the moment works for me. When I was younger I didn’t know anything about record labels to be honest. I didn’t know anything about publishing. I only learned about the industry when I moved here. I’m glad I didn’t because I think when you know too much, that’s when you become clouded by it all. I’ve done it the right way.”
