It has been three years since Falling or Flying, the one Jorja Smith put down in Walsall with DAMEDAME* for the most part. During that time, she has made it a habit to go back to the same producer. “Little Things” was where she and P2J first got on the same wavelength, and they have been at it ever since, putting in some good-natured talk of a dance project between them. Come September 2025, she is in his East London studio, and there are two years’ worth of ideas to be had. She would not put it down as any grand design later on, more like music you write and record in three sessions because it is right, drawing on house, grime, and UK garage.
What Are the Odds is different. Smith puts more of herself into the writing than ever and has no time for those who do not come clean. You will find her co-headlining All Points East with Tems on the night of its release and making an appearance as a musical guest for Saturday Night Live UK’s inaugural season in April. The songs here concern a liar. One who makes promises he doesn’t keep and won’t answer for. Or who was professing love in front of another woman. There is even one who put forward a home as a dream, only for it to be revealed as such. And someone who would say she was voiceless. The approach is too weary for any pretension. Take “For Life”: she tells him he can’t be saved by her now and asks why, while being certain of their bond and that she would forgo her peace for him. Then the chorus will have it, “got you for life,” and the chasm between what she is sure of and his silence is all there is to it.
One could not say Smith has written with less adornment. The ones that are best for it have the most to put across. On “I Lied, You Lied,” she is already gone, outside, and the pre-chorus is plain: “Never really had a choice with me/I still stand here, and I can’t believe/When you said I had no voice, you see/I lied, you lied.” That is the end of the matter. The second verse is superior: “You said you’re in love with her, still standing in front of me/Meanwhile, it’s all a game, just took me a second to see beneath it.” She tells him to get over her and that it was kind of her to leave him last time, when in truth he was not hard to let go.
“Pretend” is the same sort of thing, only from another vantage. She has called it off so often there is no disputing she told him, and she goes through the inconsistencies: “Many times, many ways, many games, many lies/What you say, how you moved, shit you do, don’t align.” The bridge is conclusive: “Now I’m done, I’m too good for this/That’s enough, no, it doesn’t make sense/I’m not like him, no, I can’t pretend.” As for “What’s Done Is Done,” she wants to know if it was work or his boys or simply her, before letting the mask fall: “You ain’t nobody/So quit lying to yourself.”
On the title track, one is left with none of that relationship stuff. It is her way of seeing things, and as she puts it, she has had enough of it. The second verse makes that plain: “When you’re young on a stage with the mic to yourself/Realisin’ it all, but there’s no one there/No one there to care when the lights are out/And the crowd don’t shout any more.” She will have you know everyone wants something for it, she says by way of asking how she came to be in this position. Then comes the finest pen work on “What Are the Odds” in an Oliver Twist line: “Like Oliver Twist, you give, but quick like, ‘Please, can I have some more?’” She is aware people are making do, surviving as they can, and if she had the means, God knows she would be the saving grace. But she can’t, and she knows it.
There is a song for London, and with Devlin on “This City,” one encounters the odd moment. Smith tells of what the city has exacted in her verse; she is done with running, the passion is gone, it was better in the days of having nothing. There is a need to go and a desire to put down roots. And then Devlin puts in a redo of his 2010 “London City” verse, and it is as if he is sending word from another London altogether. He is on the A13 with four hundred or so, getting high on life with the wind and his tears in his eyes, smoking out the window with some boys prone to a fight. His words are no response to hers. The whole reason for their being on the same record is the chasm between her weariness of the place and his brand of reckless affection.
Some of the rest of it lacks the bite of that. “Dancing” is sweet enough in its inquiries as to whether he fancies a dance, holding hands, putting oneself out there for romance, but it does not get under the skin of the feeling. “Young Heart” is directed at an earlier self, yet adds little new. “Make It Your Home” is a breather in its own right; she asks him to make of her heart his home, but an hour on, there is not much to recall.
Even the Wizkid single “Alive” is more about the chemistry than what is being said; sure, the shift to Pidgin and Yoruba in his verse has its effect, but the desire on display is the standard kind. Smith holds back for “When It Gets Like That.” The other night, she was up late, couldn’t sleep, and made a thousand calls to him, perhaps. Tired of being put to the test, even if she does love him. “Another wave and I watered my seeds down/Watch it bloom then you tear it down/Feel like your favorite shoes the way you wear me out,” goes the second verse. Sink or swim, he would see her drown.
Solid (★★★½☆)
Favorite Track(s): “For Life,” “I Lied You Lied,” “When It Gets Like That”