Little Simz wins the Mercury Prize for 'Sometimes I Might Be Introvert'

Why it matters

September 8, 2022. The Mercury Prize was awarded to Little Simz's Sometimes I Might Be Introvert (Age 101 Music, September 2021). Simz, who had been working independently since her teenage years and had built her catalog across five albums of progressively expanding ambition, became the third hip-hop or grime act to take the prize (after Dizzee Rascal in 2003 and Skepta in 2016) and one of the very few women rappers to win it. The album is, as discussed, an orchestral-soul-rap suite produced by Simz's longtime collaborator Inflo (the producer of the British soul-collective Sault). The Mercury win arrived at the culmination of Simz's decade-long arc as an independent-label artist working outside the major-label commercial system. Her catalog had been respected by critics for years; the Mercury was the institutional recognition that consolidated the conversation. Simz has, in the years since, continued releasing on Age 101 and her own arrangements, refusing major-label signing offers. You should hear Sometimes I Might Be Introvert as a complete album. The track "Introvert" alone is worth the listen.