No Thank You: Little Simz drops new album, just a week after announcing its arrival

Mercury prize winner Little Simz has dropped a brand new album, called No Thank You.

“Had to channel it somehow, this the only way I know. The love ALREADY is phenomenal thank you so much. Enjoy the music, blessings,” Tweeted Little Simz with a short clip of Heart on Fire, the sixth song on the record.

Fans were thrilled by the release, with one Tweeting, “You’re in the top three UK rappers and you’re not 2 or 3”, another saying, “Shattered the album of the year polls in the final lap once again,” and another saying, “Beautiful album. Already on repeat.”

The 10-track album, which runs for 50 minutes, has been entirely produced by Inflo, who was the main producer of Little Simz’ award-winning previous album, the September 2021-released Sometimes I Might Be Introvert. No Thank You also features vocals from British singer-songwriter Cleo Sol, who closely works with Inflo.

According to Fader, the opening track on the album, Angel, is dedicated to Little Simz’s friend model Harry Uzoka, who was stabbed to death in 2018.

Little Simz had announced the album’s arrival only last week – but had not provided a release date. She shared the news on Twitter with a video where a keyboard typed out four statements: “Emotion is energy in motion / honour your truth and feelings / eradicate fear / boundaries are important.”

No Thank You is Little Simz’s fifth album, the first three being Tale of Trials + Persons (2015), Stillness In Wonderland (2016) and Grey Area (2019) followed by Sometimes I Might Be Introvert. She has also released four mixtapes, over a dozen singles, and 10 extended plays.

It’s been a busy year for the 28-year-old Islington-born rapper. Little Simz was named the Best New Artist at the Brit Awards in February (despite her debut album being released seven years earlier), was joint-winner of the Album Of The Year award at the November MOBO Awards for Sometimes I Might Be Introvert (alongside British rapper Knucks) and won the prestigious Mercury Prize for the same album in October.

Other nominees for the Mercury Prize were Self Esteem, Wet Leg, Harry Styles and Sam Fender. “We all made incredible albums,” she said at the award show. “We all changed people’s lives with our music, and that’s the most important thing.”

In an interview with the Standard before the release of Sometimes I Might Be Introvert, Little Simz said: “Honestly, respectfully, I think I’m very very talented. I know I am. But I also wanted to pose the question: why is legacy important? I want to be a legend, but sometimes I don’t know why.

“There are all these people on the ground doing real work: the teachers, the healers, the preachers. So why do we admire the people in the public eye so much?”

No Thank You is available on all major music platforms now