Jorja Smith at Electric Brixton, London, review: Singer is a gifted storyteller

There's a lot of hype swirling around the 20-year-old. Is it deserved? Absolutely

Jorja Smith performs live onstage (Chloe Newman)

​When Walsall’s Jorja Smith first came to London in the summer of 2015, she was getting out of bed at 4am, before heading off to start her 6am shift at Starbucks.

Just over two years later, the singer has worked with one of the world’s biggest artists, Drake, taken him to her local co-op (obviously), featured on an unfathomable amount of “one to watch” lists – including fourth place on the BBC Sound of 2017 list – and is now headlining a packed-out, 1,800-capacity Electric Brixton two months after selling out the 1,000-capacity Village Underground.

All this, and she’s only 20 years old. There’s a lot of hype swirling around Jorja Smith. Is it deserved? Absolutely.

The lights dim. Jorja’s four-piece band – keys, bass, guitar and drums – take their places. Strings gently play out from the speakers, accompanied by grainy, raw home footage of Jorja projected onto the back wall. A sense of intimacy has been established immediately.

Eventually, Jorja makes her way onstage, greeted by frenzied screams from the great mass of young people in the pit. “Something In The Way” from 2016’s Project 11 EP and the buttery smooth, Cadenza-produced “Where Did I Go”, one of her best songs, soon follow.

Jorja Smith’s voice – part Amy Winehouse, part Lauryn Hill, part Rihanna – sends your mind hurtling elsewhere. She has a timeless, distinctive, powerful voice that makes it impossible to focus on the gig as you race off into fantasies, dreams and painful memories.

This is no slight, Jorja Smith is just a natural, gifted storyteller, her soulful songs detailing everything from racial profiling by the police on “Blue Lights”, to finding the courage to say goodbye on “Where Did I Go” and the death of a friend on “Goodbyes”.

Jorja’s Drake feature, “Get Together”, a club track and one of the best songs from More Life, snaps everyone back into reality and Electric Brixton starts dancing. Later on, Thea Gajic comes out to deliver her “Carry Me Home (Interlude)” poem, before Jorja launches into one of the best songs from her only EP, Carry Me Home.

Maverick Sabre, who worked with Jorja extensively during her earlier years, comes out to join her. They make a stunning pair, their voices silencing the room.

“Blue Lights”, her sombre breakout track that sampled Dizzee Rascal’s “Sirens”, ends the set, with the whole crowd singing “DON’T YOU RUN” back at her. Jorja might be shy on stage, awkwardly mumbling her between-song chatter, but her voice more than makes up for her current lack of stage presence. She is still just 20, remember. In the years to come, she will get better.

“People want to hear good music, they don’t want to hear rubbish,” Smith told Complex about her own meteoric rise. “So once something good comes along, it’s going to keep on growing.” She’s not wrong.