Rapper Little Simz: ‘I don’t hold back – I feel super free’

She is as well known for her dizzying talent (Stormzy hailed her as a legend') as she is for her privacy. So, as Little Simz releases her fourth album, why is she finally opening up?

It's a drab afternoon on an industrial estate in London and I'm sitting, somewhat awkwardly, in the back of a parked car with Little Simz. The British-Nigerian rapper-singer-actor, 27, has spent the morning doing a photoshoot. The combination of closed cafes (England is still in lockdown) and persistent March drizzle has meant we've ended up in the car, an enormous 4x4 with TV screens built into the seats. Still wearing full makeup from the shoot, Simz is swaddled in comfortable grey sweatpants and a black, shiny puffer jacket. People think I'm rude, or antisocial, or awkward, because I'm not chatty," she says.

Simz, full name Simbiatu Ajikawo, doesn't waste her words. When she talks, she is purposeful, precise, politely withholding. Yet from its overture, her fourth studio album, Sometimes I Might Be Introvert, reveals an interior world of cinematic proportions. I'm definitely not the greatest at opening up," she says today. But there are two Simz: the one that is by nature reticent and the Simz who wants to show you her universe.