Jorja Smith struggles to decide whether ‘F’ stands for Frank Ocean or Frank, Amy Winehouse’s debut album. “I love them both – it just makes me happy thinking about them,” she says in our latest dA-Zed guide, before ultimately landing on Ocean. When she was 13, she had his Ultra Nostalgia mixtape playing on constant repeat.

You can hear a bit of both influences on her new single “With You”, which she released last week. The reverberating guitars and pitch-shifted vocals at the start share an atmosphere with Ocean’s Blonde (before exploding into something far more high-octane and 2-step garage), and Smith’s vocals, soulful and jazzy, have always had a touch of Winehouse. 

Smith grew up in Walsall, a town in the West Midlands, which she describes as “the best place in the world”, even if people think her accent is weird. She started singing and writing her own songs from a young age, before releasing her first single “Blue Light” when she was 18 and a “huge grime head”. The idea came to her when she was analysing the music video for Dizzee Rascal’s “Sirens” as part of her media coursework; she interpolated a snatch of Rascal’s lyrics with her own and mixed in a sample of “Amour, émoi... et vous” by French composers Guy Bonnet & Roland Romanelli. The resulting track, which blew up on her Soundcloud and shot her to stardom in a matter of months, still means a lot to her today. “When I play it at shows, when the first chord starts, everyone knows that song,” which makes her think, “gosh, I’ve been singing this for years now and it’s still some people’s favourite.”

Since “Blue Light” launched her career, she has released two albums and three EPs, won a Brit award and Grammy and Mercury prize nominations, and collaborated with some of the world’s top artists, including Drake, Stormzy and Burna Boy. Yet, she hasn’t always found the exposure that comes with success easy to deal with. “I” is for the internet, which she has mixed feelings about. She enjoys going down Pinterest rabbit holes and watching British crime drama Mobland on Paramount+, but for a long time avoided social media. “On a certain app, you can review filtered comments, so there’s me like ‘oh let’s have a look!’ and it’s just negative negative ones,” she says. “Even ten people saying your song sounds crap or you look like this [is] a lot for one person to take.  I almost didn’t do this because I saw a mean comment and I thought, ‘I don’t want to give people too much of me on social media.’”

But there are upsides, too. “T” is for touring, an experience she loves. “I’ve got the best family that I tour with. I used to be so nervous to sing, but I think naturally I’ve progressed and become a better performer”. One of the highlights of her career so far has been playing at Lollapalooza festival in Brazil and seeing a vast crowd of thousands sing along to her music. “I’m just really grateful and very happy to be here, and I want to keep doing this,” she says.

Watch the full breakdown in Jorja Smith’s dA-Zed guide above for more.