Jorja Smith: Overcoming Public Scrutiny and Finding Her Sound in Dance Music

As The Guardian reports, Jorja Smith walks into a sticky south-west London pub on a sweltering July afternoon and finds herself surrounded by mourners in black suits carrying pints — an unlikely setting for the British singer to map out her most unapologetic record yet. In a wide-ranging new interview, Smith opens up about the burnout that followed her rapid ascent, the body-shaming she weathered in public glare, and how stepping back into her hometown helped her reset. The result: "What Are the Odds," her third album and her first full commitment to the dancefloor, out this week.

A pivot from soul to rave

The 12-track record, built almost entirely with London producer P2J — Richard Isong, the studio ear behind Beyoncé, Burna Boy, and Tems — threads UK garage, funky house, 2-step, and Afrobeats into what Smith calls "a vibrant collage of Black British dance music." Features include Wizkid and Devlin. The tracklist pulses from top to bottom. Where her Mercury-nominated debut "Lost & Found" and 2023's "Falling Or Flying" leaned into introspective soul-R&B — anchored by her 2016 breakout "Blue Lights," which once drew Amy Winehouse comparisons — this is a different animal entirely. Smith calls it "a certified, old-fashioned ass-shaker."

From EP to album in two days

The pivot happened by accident. Smith and P2J first planned a dance EP after their 2023 club single "Little Things," but the material kept multiplying. "We went through nine songs in the first two days," Smith told the Guardian. "I turned up to the studio and he'd made all this music from our conversations. I left and went straight to my label and said: 'I think this is an album, not an EP. This is serious.'"

Why the dancefloor now

The shift reads as both personal and professional decompression. After the recognition cycle — Brits, Grammys, a Drake co-sign — Smith says the burnout caught up with her. Returning to familiar ground, she reconnected with the music she actually listens to when she's out: DJs, block parties, 2am raves. "I just love dancing," she shrugs in the interview. "I like going out to listen to music, a lot of my friends are DJs. It'd be nice to hear more of my stuff when I'm outside."

At 29, Smith is choosing her own tempo over the industry's — and the dancefloor is, for the first time, where she sounds most like herself.