What Are The Odds - Jorja Smith

Why we’re listening

Smith has been treated for years as a voice waiting for the right context, which is a compliment that curdles if you hear it long enough. This is the first project that sounds like it was made by someone who has decided what she is. P2J built it across three sessions after a loose conversation following Little Things, and it moves through UK garage, 2-step, UK funky and Afro house without settling in any of them. This City reaches for Devlin's 2010 London City and puts Devlin on it, a specific and slightly strange piece of English rap history to pull, and exactly the kind of choice that makes a record feel like a place instead of a genre. Smith on the whole thing: this is music to make you move.