Neu Jorja Smith: “I thought I’d be a police officer”

When Jorja Smith turned sixteen, she considered a life away from music and, er, in ‘the force’. Sixth form beckoned, and she’d either stick to what she did best, or choose a career on the opposite end of the spectrum. “I thought I’d be a police officer,” she remembers, two years on. Left “thinking music was too difficult”, she kept writing until doors began to open.

Police crop up in ‘Blue Lights’, a Dizzee Rascal-nodding single that’s sent Jorja’s name stratospheric. One draw is in how she reinterprets Dizzee’s anthemic ‘Sirens’, but her delivery is another thing altogether. Notes float over hard-hitting subjects, twisting and turning when there doesn’t look to be a route beyond the norm. She possesses a stop-you-in-your-tracks vocal, the kind legendary stars deliver on a whim. No pressure, then.

“‘Blue Lights’ didn’t have to be based around the police,” she states. “[It’s about how] you shouldn’t have a guilty conscience if you’ve got nothing to be guilty for. That’s what I picked up, growing up. A lot of my friends are black boys. And every time they saw police, they’d be on edge. I was thinking, ‘Just act normal. You’ve done nothing wrong.’ I expanded that and made it into a big story.”

The Walsall newcomer - now based in London - always knew she wanted to pen stories. Studying music at A Level, she practiced singing in French, Italian and Latin, learning how “the notes move” in different languages. “The songs would be written in an English version. But it’s better to have a good understanding, because you won’t be able to sing well, if you don’t know what you’re singing. That’s why I write all my own stuff. I find it difficult to sing something someone else has written and I don’t have an idea what they’re on about!”