Jorja Smith wants to move locations. We’ve met in a proper London caff off Caledonian Road, the type where the only tea on offer is builders and the only woman in the building is the one taking the full English breakfast orders. My presence at one of the tables has already been noted, and Smith’s arrival — all smiles in a cropped orange T-shirt, jorts and a perfectly slicked-back bun, her skin glowing in the July sun — is even more conspicuous. People are looking and privacy doesn’t feel guaranteed. “There’s a little courtyard outside the place where we’re doing rehearsals, do you wanna go there?” she asks me gently in her perfectly preserved Walsall accent, picking up on the vibe. While chatting en route, we pass a young man on a Lime bike whose eyes widen with recognition as he rolls past, dumbstruck.
Once settled, Smith tells me about this time last year, when the parks were similarly scorched and the majority of London had forgotten what it felt like to have ever worn a jacket. The singer-songwriter, now 29, was preparing to return to the city for a short stint in the studio. It was a quest to reunite with east London-based producer and Beyoncé collaborator Richard Isong, aka P2J. Isong and Smith had worked together once before, on the UK funky-infused earworm Little Things, which spent 11 weeks in the UK Top 20 and was nigh-on inescapable for the entirety of summer 2023. It was a partnership practically begging to be repeated.
