As the music business gears up to present its crop of talent for 2017 to the wider world, a lot of people have Jorja on their minds.
Jorja Smith, a teenager from Walsall, earned a management contract and fame at school after putting a lo-fi video on YouTube in 2012, of her and a guitarist friend performing Alex Clare’s song Too Close.
She has gone on to reference Dizzee Rascal on her first proper recording, Blue Lights, and mixed a Maverick Sabre cameo with Henry Purcell’s 1695 composition A Prince of Glorious Race Descended on her song A Prince.
Most striking is her video for her slinky piano ballad Where Did I Go?, now on over a million YouTube views since its summer release.
Self-shot in uncomfortable close-up on her aunt and uncle’s stairwell, its look will be instantly appealing to the selfie generation, while its smoky soul places her in the sophisticated world of Amy Winehouse and FKA twigs. A small London show in new venue Omeara next month will probably be one of the last opportunities, outside of that intimate video, to see her up close.
Dec 7, Omeara, SE1 (0871 220 0260, omearalondon.com)