Jorja Smith has never been shy about speaking her mind, but in a candid new interview the Walsall-born singer has gone further than ever before, talking openly about the relentless scrutiny of her appearance, the exhaustion that nearly broke her, and how retreating to her home town helped her find her footing again.
Smith, who shot to fame in her late teens and quickly became one of the most recognised names in British music, says the attention that came with that success was not always welcome. Grammy nominations, Brit Award recognition and a co-sign from Drake pushed her into a spotlight she was not always prepared for, and the comments about how she looks have never let up.
‘So many people say things about my appearance,’ she said. ‘It’s not normal.’ For someone who has spent the better part of a decade in the public eye, the body-shaming has clearly left a mark. She speaks about it not with bitterness but with a kind of weary disbelief, the tone of someone who has had to develop thick skin just to get through the week.
The burnout that followed her early success was real and serious. Smith has spoken before about feeling stretched thin, but she goes into more detail now about what it actually felt like to be constantly on, constantly performing, constantly available to an industry and a fanbase that never really switches off. At a certain point, she says, something had to give.
What saved her, by her own account, was going back to basics. She returned to Walsall, the West Midlands town where she grew up, and spent time decompressing away from the London music scene and the relentless cycle of press and promotion. It sounds simple, but for someone at her level of fame, stepping back even briefly takes real nerve.
That time away fed directly into her new music. The record she has come back with is a departure in some ways, built more for dancefloors and late nights than for quiet listening sessions. She describes it as something made for raving, which is a long way from the stripped-back soul sound that first made her name. It suggests an artist who has genuinely recharged rather than just taken a breather before doing the same thing again.
Smith sat down for the interview at a pub in south-west London, dressed simply in a tank top, hair scraped back, no fuss. The venue turned out to be hosting a wake that afternoon, which meant sweaty suits and long queues at the bar rather than the quiet corner table that had been hoped for. She took it in her stride, waiting patiently for her drink and feeling too polite to push through the crowd despite the circumstances.
There is something very Jorja Smith about that detail. For all the fame and the industry accolades, she comes across as someone who still operates by ordinary rules, who feels awkward jumping a queue even when the situation might justify it. It is part of what has made her so easy for British audiences to connect with over the years.
The new chapter she is stepping into feels hard-earned. She is not the teenager who uploaded her first track to SoundCloud anymore, and she is clearly not trying to be. The new music reflects someone who has lived a bit, felt the weight of expectations, and decided to make something that feels good rather than something that ticks boxes.
Body image remains a live issue for her, and she is not pretending otherwise. The comments have not stopped and probably will not. But there is a sense that she has reached a place where she can name the problem clearly without letting it define her. That is its own kind of progress.
With the new album on the way and a sound that promises something fresher and more energetic than anything she has put out before, Smith looks like an artist ready to remind people exactly why they started paying attention in the first place.