Jorja Smith Regains Control on Her Long-Awaited New Album (2024)

When she was only 21 years old, Jorja Smith released Lost & Found, an album that ushered in a new era of R&B within London’s pop-centric music scene. Since then, her collaborations with industry heavy hitters such as Drake, Kendrick Lamar, Burna Boy, Kali Uchis, and Stormzy have proven her chameleon-like sensibilities as a singer. Smith’s voice, warm but raw at the same time, has a depth that makes it feel as if you’ve known her for decades. It’s hard to believe she’s just 26 now, and that she released her second full-length album, Falling or Flying, only last week.

Bringing the record to life took personal sacrifices for the singer. She used the time allotted to her during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic to rethink the type of music she wanted to make. She also realized it was time to get the hell out of London.

“Near the end of 2021, when things started to go a bit more back to normal, I met up with my friends [French electronic musicians and producers] Dame Dame,” Smith tells Harper’s Bazaar from her new cottage. “I’d be going to their house, and they lived in Birmingham”—not far from Walsall, where she grew up. “That kind of set the wheels in motion in terms of realizing I needed to go home. London is a bit too much. I’ve now got a better balance with the city. I go there for work, I’ve got friends there, but I love home.”

London was a formative part of Smith’s ascent into stardom. Her rise in the music industry is now British lore: She moved to the capital city at 18, worked as a Starbucks barista, and wrote songs and recorded voice notes that eventually turned into her debut project. But escaping the “intensity” of London for Walsall, especially as a recording artist, was imperative for her creative growth.

“I actually have a life now,” she says. “I can actually be Jorja. I’m Jorja Smith all the time, but at least I can separate myself and feel less pressure.”

Listeners can sense Smith’s newfound peace of mind on Falling or Flying. The record sees her experiment across genres, from “Go Go Go,” a rock song that echoes SZA’s “F2F,” to “Little Things,” a jazzy, house-inspired track that took over TikTok. The title track— a dreamy slow burn—is reminiscent of the long-term ruler of R&B herself, Sade. But Smith manages to make each track uniquely her own. If anything, Falling or Flying is a sonic declaration of the type of artist she wants to be moving forward. She’s not trying to be a hitmaker as much as she’s aiming to create music that lasts.

“I feel like I’ve stepped into womanhood now, and to me [the album] sounds like growth. I’m able to be a lot more in the moment. The music has grown up. It’s a new chapter, more mature and a lot more self-reflective. But I feel like with my next albums, I’ll probably say the same thing,” she says, laughing.

The singer is also evolving in a style sense. Even while going casual and makeup-free for our Zoom call, she still opts to wear a lavender polo set from one of Gen Z’s favorite brands, Blumarine. Much like she does in her music, Smith seamlessly experiments with style, often switching between sporty custom Nike sets and edgy vintage numbers that are always sleek, but never too serious.

“I’m trying to dress up more when I’m not ‘Jorja Smith,’ because I’m realizing how much it can make you feel better if you actually just make an effort to get dressed every day—because usually I don’t,” she says. “Whether that’s looking sexy or not, my main concern is always staying comfortable. Your style changes your mood, changes how you feel, how you would be. I’ve seen other artists that are able to give their albums eras, and they have a look, but that’s not me. It’s going to have a look, but I’m not making up a look.”

At the end of the day, for Smith it will always be about the music. The new album isn’t just a testament to the singer’s musical growth, but also her exercise of creative control. You can really hear how she took her time crafting the selection of songs. Each track feels like a fleeting moment—from a party, of heartbreak, of longing—that lets us walk into Smith’s world, but only as far as she allows us to go.

“I really learned to let go of things and to be more in the moment with this album. The main goal with this project is truly just to feel, that’s all—I don’t want you or anyone else listening to feel alone,” she says. “But I also wanted to write classics. I want parents in 30 years to play this for their kids and be like, ‘This is what I was listening to.’ And maybe have kids discover it without their parents showing them, too. And then they grow old and show their kids and say, ‘I used to play this!’ That would be nice.”