Following her Mercury Prize-nominated 2019 breakout album, Grey Area, and a widespread TikTok trend turned feminist anthem, Little Simz continues to pack a punch with Sometimes I Might Be Introvert. The project unfolds like a musical memoir and simultaneously displays both her vulnerability and power. A concept album where Simz takes a journey through her own mind and examines the reasons behind her more introverted tendencies, she emotionally confronts her childhood, the intricacies of familial love, and how her early years and experiences formed the woman and artist that she’s become over an experimental and maximalist backdrop.

With lyrically unapologetic tracks like “I Love You, I Hate You,” Simz breaks free from her self-confessed introversion, weaving pain, anger, and love into a seemingly effortless flow. Simz’s blunt and pointed lyricism is, as usual, equally venomous and vulnerable. “Never thought my parents would be my first heartbreak”, she laments over plucky bass and accented drums, “Is you a sperm donor or a Dad to me?” Thunderous horns, lavish strings and operatic voices all work together, along with the vocal interplay between Simz and a man who roughly repeats the titular motif.  

Tackling such personal subject matter clearly takes its toll on Simz, but the bombastic and cinematic sounds that characterize the album cleverly contrast its advertised title. Interludes with a refined, fairy godmother-like voice help create a push-pull dynamic between the grittiness of Simz’s real, tough world, and her more whimsical one of dreams and creativity, which exist somewhere over the rainbow.