“I don’t really have an in-between,” Jorja Smith is explaining, “I’m either happy or sad, I don’t have a middle-ground. And my life since I put out the first album? I don’t know if things are going good or bad, if I’m up or I’m down. I don’t know if I’m flying or falling.”
At 25-years-old, the British singer-songwriter with the gorgeous voice and searing pen has already spent close to a decade soaring. While based in London from the age of 18, Smith collaborated with an astonishing roster of international stars like Kendrick Lamar, Drake, Stormzy, Burna Boy, Kali Uchis, Popcaan; in 2018, she was the first independent artist to win the coveted BRITs Critics Choice Award (she remains on her own label, FAMM); that same year her debut album, Lost & Found, was released to rave reviews and a Mercury Prize-nomination. She won a BRIT Award for Best British Female Artist in 2019, and was nominated that same year for the Grammy for Best New Artist. And yet, she shrugs at the mention of these accolades: “I don’t care about that stuff really, I just want to keep it going, keep things moving. We’re here now.” Beneath the surface of her successes, as she became a known entity in the public eye, Jorja Smith was growing overwhelmed with it all. And so it is that she arrived at the title for her long-awaited second full-length: Falling or Flying.
Rather than diving deeper into the glamorous possibilities of life as a young star in the capital, recently Smith went against the grain and moved back home to Walsall. Basing herself back in the West Midlands, she says, allows for vital boundaries, comforts and slowness that felt impossible in London. “Home is where the heart is, to be fair. It’s where I can be myself and not worry–”, she stops and laughs, “Or, okay, I worry all the time anyway, but I worry less. London served its purpose, it made my eyes bigger, gave me amazing opportunities – but it’s too much. I was so tense and on edge there, and I think it was because I couldn’t see the sky.” That sense of hectic anxiety, of feeling trapped, of lows and highs, of stepping out of that into a space that feels more assured is tantamount to Jorja’s new era. Where Lost & Found, was a collection of songs about her life up to the point of its release, Falling or Flying is more immediate and cohesive, she says, and reflective of the now: a snapshot of a young woman growing up.
A self-described “people-pleaser” who came to the music industry as a teenager, she recalls some of her first studio sessions where she would sing on “anything and everything”, too nervous to say if she didn’t like what was playing. “At 18, you’re still really young. I’ve had to grow up in front of a lot of people, you make mistakes,” she says, “I’m gonna be constantly growing, evolving, in front of people, and so I’m always trying to protect part of myself.” The return home now she’s a little older, then, is symbolic of connecting back to an innate part of herself, doing things on her own terms. “I’ve gotten better at trusting myself, not doubting myself as much, and not being so affected and worried by other peoples’ opinions.” Indeed, she reminisces on being a teenager in Walsall when everything was
all ahead of her, taking a walk every night after school before sitting at her piano to write; in London, she had stopped playing piano at all.
But music, she was reminded during the stillness of the pandemic lockdowns, is the place where she goes to express herself and ruminate on how she’s feeling. “I’m not good at explaining stuff, I’m much braver getting it out in my songs,” she laughs, ruefully, “I always listen to feel – and that’s what I want with my music. I want you to listen to feel happy, sad, angry; as long as it evokes some emotion then I’m doing something good – and that’s the same for me when I’m making it.”
And thus we arrive at Falling or Flying; a sonically vast record – sometimes sleek and shiny R&B, sometimes vibey and heated UK funky, elsewhere intense and raw alternative – which finds an artist stepping into a new chapter. She’s acknowledging the ever-whirring cogs of her brain but also moving through it, growing, respecting herself above everything else. It’s why the defiant lead single ‘Try Me’ – an astute, self-dissecting take on being viewed by the public gaze over bold, intricate beats – is also the opening track of the album. She explains: “It’s kind of ‘BAM!’, you know? It whacks you right in the face, it sounds like an entrance.” She credits the record’s slick and assured musicality to production duo DAMEDAME*, who are tellingly her old friends from Walsall: “I feel like making the album brought me back home,” she smiles, warmly, “Where you’re from is where you get your powers, and that’s why I’m so grateful I could make this with DAMEDAME* – they still have their roots in the ground from back home. And we had so much fun making this.”
She says the first half of the album is the flying, the feeling herself, and midway through there’s a switch from the confidence to the insecurity and self-doubt of falling. We go from summer party vibes (‘Little Things’), a glorious J Hus feature (‘Feelings’), to the title track, all of which find Jorja navigating friendships, her relationship with herself, and trying to move to men at parties – and often finding them coming up short. Then there’s ‘Go Go Go’, a propulsive indie-adjacent track that nods to Jorja’s teen love of groups like Jaws, The Kooks, Bombay Bicycle Club. “I’m in my little alt bag, but I’ve always kind of been in it,” she grins, “People might be like, ‘I didn’t expect this’, but I’m like: ‘well, I would.’” The track also marks the shift to the ‘falling’ half of the album, switching to a sound that’s more intense but also perhaps more introspective. Beyond that point, there are beautiful songs like ‘Try and Fit In’, which utilises the choir of 11 to 18 year old girls she’s started since moving back to Walsall, recognising the dearth in spaces for young people to congregate and create with the closure of youth centres (incidentally, at some point she wants to build on this and make a centre of some sort for young people in Walsall).
There’s the touching letter to her younger self in the form of ‘Greatest Gift’, featuring Lila Iké, which is an acknowledgement of her pride in herself, but also the desire to get back to her inner-child. There are tracks about being made to doubt herself in the face of a man gaslighting her, reflecting on whether past “loves” were ever really love at all; songs which explore the realities of the limelight versus life for those who are behind-the-scenes, airing her upset or gratitude for people who she’s not sure will ever realise the lyrics are about them. Though, with that said, more often than not she recognises the tracks are more self-reflective than anything else: “So much of the time I think I’ve written a song about someone, and then realise I’m actually talking about myself,” she muses, “So sometimes these songs are just me being there for myself.”

On Falling or Flying, then, Jorja Smith is reminding herself (and us), that whether things are up or down, she’s very much in control. In fact, as she grows and holds herself, she’s fully thriving.