Little Simz - Free

Little Simz is a rapper from England who put out her first album in 2015. She’s won the Mercury Prize, a Brit Award, and three MOBO awards. She also starred in the Netflix series Top Boy. Her most recent album is called Lotus. It came out in June 2025, and it followed a pretty tumultuous time in her career. For this episode, I got to talk to Little Simz about one of the songs from that album, called "Free," along with Miles Clinton James, who produced the track. Thanks to Sonos for their support of the podcast. Check out sonos.com https://sonos.com/. For more, visit songexploder.net/little-simz. https://songexploder.net/little-simz

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Hrishikesh Hirway?

  You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs and, piece by piece, tell the story of how they were made. I'm Rishi Kesh Hirway.

• 0:11Hrishikesh Hirway?

  I'm going to be on tour, playing some shows this fall. I'm going to be in London on Wednesday, November 18th. I'm going to be performing solo at Rough Trade Records on Denmark Street, and I'm going to be in conversation about my music moderated by one of my favorite actors and writers, Matthew Bainton. And a ticket to the show also gets you a copy of my album on vinyl or CD. And in December, I'm going to be on tour supporting S. Carrie. We're going to be playing a bunch of shows in the Northeast US. So I hope to see you in one of those places. You can find all the details and get links to tickets at songexploder.net/live. That's songexploder.net/live.

• 0:55Hrishikesh Hirway?

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• 1:39Hrishikesh Hirway?

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• 1:56Hrishikesh Hirway?

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• 2:40Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Go to stio.com/songexploder for 20% off your order. That's S-T-I-O dot com slash songexploder. Stio dot com slash songexploder. Stio, designed and tested in Jackson Hole. Little Sims is a rapper from England who put out her first album in 2015. She's won the Mercury Prize, a Brit Award, and three MOBO Awards. She also starred in the Netflix series Top Boy. Her most recent album is called Lotus and came out in June 2025, and it followed a pretty tumultuous time in her career. For this episode, I got to talk to Little Sims about one of the songs from that album called "Free", along with Miles Clinton James, who produced the track.

• 3:35Speaker 01

  My name is Simbi.

• 3:37Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Where does the story of this song start for you?

• 3:40Speaker 01

  This song kind of happened in two parts. It was the year 2022, like springtime. I was reading this book called Conversations with God, and it talks a lot about love and fear and the duality of those two things. I had this feeling like, why is it fear and not hate? But that book definitely unlocked that for me. And I was just in a deep state of documenting my thoughts and feelings on paper. So I kind of wanted to write my take. So I wrote the words as like a poem.

• 4:22Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Would you read the poem?

• 4:23Speaker 01

  Yeah. I think love is understanding that people can change and loving them anyway through every stage. I read All About Love, then I gave it to Jade. I think love is sharing knowledge, there's so much to gain. I think love is every time I put pen to the page. If I don't love what I'm doing and I'm hardly engaged. God, you love me though, I'm flawed. I know I'm not an innocent child, but I am yours. And if you're with me, you are safe. I know my body isn't immortal, but I am brave. I think, you know, it's real love when it's sincere. I'm a sharm, I ain't scared, eradicate fear. I'm not the best, like, poetry deliverer, I don't think.

• 5:07Hrishikesh Hirway?

  No, that sounded great.

• 5:08Speaker 01

  No, some people that are so aware of like the space and the cadence and stuff. But I think mine just ends up sounding like a rap. Or like, I'm just, yeah.

• 5:20Hrishikesh Hirway?

  When you were writing that, who do you think you were writing it for?

• 5:24Speaker 01

  Me.

• 5:25Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Like, what are the parts of that that you felt like you most needed to hear?

• 5:28Speaker 01

  I think that love is forgiving yourself. That, just that line, yeah, really hits me. Because I just think, you know, we make mistakes and carry a lot of like shame and a lot of blame sometimes. And it weighs us down. Well, it's definitely weighed me down and I think I've just had to forgive myself. Do you know what I mean? I came into this industry like very trusting.

• 5:55Hrishikesh Hirway?

  How old were you?

• 5:57Speaker 01

  I started performing when I was like nine, but when I started putting out music, I was probably like fourteen, fifteen. There's a lot I probably would have done different, but then even when I say that, I'm like, would I though? Because I guess it has made me who I am. So I think it's just embracing all that comes with who you are. And like, same way you can learn to accept people, I think you learn how to accept your shortcomings and just try and be better. And just forgive yourself.

• 6:24Hrishikesh Hirway?

  So you said that the song happened in two parts. What was the second part?

• 6:28Speaker 01

  I wrote the poem and then got in with Miles, who produced the song.

• 6:36Speaker 02

  So I'm Miles Clinton James and I'm a record producer from North London.

• 6:40Hrishikesh Hirway?

  How did you and Sims first meet?

• 6:42Speaker 02

  Oh goodness, I mean, that was a very long time ago. I was a session musician and the first session was maybe 2014. I can vaguely remember playing some bass in a studio somewhere in East London. And yeah, I just remember thinking she was really focused. She had her headphones on and, you know, was writing on a notepad. That's my earliest memory, so we probably didn't speak a huge amount then.

• 7:07Hrishikesh Hirway?

  How did it go from that situation where you're not speaking to each other and you're there as a session player to becoming the producer of this track?

• 7:15Speaker 02

  You know, post that session, I was called in quite a bit to work with Sims. And I would be playing, you know, whatever it was needed at the time. So it could have been guitar, bass, percussion. And on the previous album, I was involved quite heavily on the writing side of things. So I was in, you know, with the full band and orchestra and, you know, coming up with ideas in the moment. So yeah, that was maybe the session that consolidated our relationship. We definitely spent a lot of time just connecting, yeah, emotionally, absolutely. And then June last year, we had a proper catch up over the phone. We spoke about kind of where she'd been, where she was currently, you know, she was in quite a difficult space, I would say.

• 7:57Speaker 02

  She called me up and I could tell there was a, an emptiness or hollowness in her voice. The call really took me off guard, to be honest. I was in another session and I could feel how charged, how tense she was feeling, you know, even just over the phone.

• 8:13Speaker 01

  I just got out of a situation that kind of just rattled my whole shit, to be honest. Someone that I was creatively intertwined with and worked on a lot of music with. And I think when you create with people for a long time, you almost start to feel and almost get me to feel like without this setup.

• 8:42Speaker 01

  You can't do what you do.

• 8:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 8:46Speaker 01

  And yeah, it just really rocked me a lot. I can kick myself and beat myself up and like, are you idiot? Like, you should have known and you should have da da da. My response to that was like, I'm not confident in myself. And I'm not wanna come to the studio and make everyone believe that I am. I'm not a pretender and that's not how I feel.

• 9:07Speaker 02

  And that kind of, yeah, that stopped me in my tracks.

• 9:10Speaker 01

  But what I can try and do is use it. And I can talk about the fact that I don't feel confident in myself in a song like Free.

• 9:21Speaker 02

  And what made you wanna reach out to Miles specifically?

• 9:25Speaker 01

  He just wasn't afraid. I knew he was just gonna be super down to like, try whatever. And that excited me because I didn't know what kind of album we were gonna make. But I wanted to feel free and just like a kid. That is just, this is just play.

• 9:44Speaker 02

  There are so many different kinds of producers out there who work in so many different ways. I was wondering for you, what do you want from a producer?

• 9:52Speaker 01

  I think the role of the producer is to essentially understand what the artist wants to say and allows them the room to be able to express that. And then compose this soundtrack to that story.

• 10:15Speaker 02

  Most of the other tracks on the album were created from scratch together with Sims. Um, where Free is an exception to that. Free came out of an evening hangout with my closest friend. Um, who's also a co-writer on this song, a guy called Alex Bonfanti. He and myself, we've been friends for the longest time, but as he's toured more and I've got children, we don't find much time to connect. So I'd hold these evening kind of catch-ups, you know, with no real pressure on what would come out of it, just really for us to catch up. I jumped on drums and Al is an incredible bass player. He's the guy who's actually playing bass on the song.

• 10:58Hrishikesh Hirway?

  First of all, there's something that you can only hear when you have the stems isolated, which is this little moment.

• 11:10Speaker 02

  I think that might actually be Al saying, you know, he was lucky and he was pretty happy with the groove I was playing.

• 11:17Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Amazing.

• 11:18Speaker 02

  I love stuff like that. There's so much hidden stuff in stems that no one would ever know about, but leave it in. It's part of the vibe.

• 11:26Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Where were you recording this?

• 11:27Speaker 02

  So I'm based at the studio in North London, which has already been around since the seventies. It belongs to a band called The Kinks.

• 11:33Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Oh, wow.

• 11:34Speaker 02

  And I have a room right at the top of the building. So I've, over the years, collected a number of tape machines and Free, in fact, was one of those songs that was recorded directly to two-inch tape in one pass, which, you know, in this day and age is quite special. I'd say not many people try and record directly to tape, you know, with no ability to erase or edit, or at least, you know, limited ability to do it.

• 11:58Hrishikesh Hirway?

  The bassline on this is, I mean, it's like the opposite of a loop. Even as the chord progression cycles back around, the bass part's always doing something different.

• 12:07Speaker 02

  You know, we actually jammed the song from beginning to end. So there was all this great movement that was happening naturally in his playing. And, you know, sometimes, unfortunately, people can go in and tidy stuff up and, yeah, simplify a lot of stuff. But in this case, I just felt like, actually, this is what it was supposed to be. You know, this interaction is human and shouldn't be tidied up too much.

• 12:27Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Yeah.

• 12:27Speaker 02

  So there's all this natural variation. You're right.

• 12:31Speaker 01

  These little things are just, I think, what makes it special. But yeah, Alex is wicked, man. He's great.

• 12:39Speaker 02

  We started off with the drum and bass groove, you know, and then I eventually came back in and said, hold on, it'd be nice to put some nylon guitar and some percussion down on top.

• 12:58Speaker 02

  And that's my humble seventy-dollar nylon guitar from back in the day. It feels really dry and basic, but definitely I love having it around.

• 13:13Speaker 02

  And that's myself on congas and my friend Alex playing tambourine. And what we would do when we have these jams is we'd lay the drums, bass and guitar down. And because my room's full of, you know, African drums and weird bits of percussion, we'd do one pass just for fun of percussion together to give it some life.

• 13:39Speaker 02

  So there you're hearing myself and Alex with a microphone, you know, six feet in front of us. And we are singing, but not at that original pitch. In fact, what we're doing is we're singing at a lower pitch and I've sped that up.

• 13:52Hrishikesh Hirway?

  No kidding?

• 13:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, so the original vocals were done by myself and I at a lower pitch. So we'd recorded the original instrumental and we wanted to get into that space of early kind of Jackson 5, kind of early seventies soul. And, you know, a lot of those singers had almost, you know, squeaky, high-pitched vocals. So one creative way to do that was actually to slow the tape down.

• 14:20Speaker 02

  And sing at a lower pitch.

• 14:30Hrishikesh Hirway?

  So that's what your voices actually sound like?

• 14:32Speaker 02

  There you go, exactly, yeah.

• 14:42Speaker 02

  So we're using some pretty old-school period correct stuff.

• 14:45Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Just tape machine technology.

• 14:47Speaker 02

  Absolutely. We didn't have any computers involved at this early stage. Part of the catch-up is just recording to tape, no screens, and just playing, you know.

• 14:59Speaker 02

  And then when you go and play the combined vocals and rhythm section back together, your voice is actually formatted up so you sound higher.

• 15:16Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Where did those words come from?

• 15:18Speaker 02

  I know me and Alex, for quite a while, have been going to a lot of marches in central London. We were feeling injustice in the world was kind of weighing heavy on our hearts and, you know, more love was more needed. So that was something that just felt right. It matched our energy.

• 15:40Speaker 02

  But even after we finished the song, we didn't really know what, you know, would come of it.

• 15:48Hrishikesh Hirway?

  My conversation with Little Sims and Miles James continues after this.

• 15:56Hrishikesh Hirway?

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• 16:32Hrishikesh Hirway?

  There's a new podcast called Before the Moment with Nile Rodgers. In every legendary music career, there's a moment right before it all changes. And in every episode of this podcast, Nile Rodgers talks to a legendary musician about the choices, the events, and the relationships that shaped their career before the moment that everything changed for them. Every story is unique and opens a window into the lives of some of the biggest names in music. And Nile is the perfect person to lead these conversations because for over 50 years, he's played guitar with artists like Diana Ross, David Bowie, Madonna, Daft Punk, and Beyoncé. In the first season of the podcast, some of Nile's guests include

• 17:14Hrishikesh Hirway?

  John Legend, Miguel, and more. New episodes are coming out every other Tuesday. Listen to Before the Moment with Nile Rodgers wherever you get your podcasts. This episode is sponsored by the podcast, What It's Like to Be. Do you ever think about what other people's workdays look like? Satisfying some of that curiosity is the idea at the heart of bestselling author Dan Heath's podcast, which is called What It's Like to Be. In each episode, Dan interviews someone from a different profession to find out what it's like to be a professional Santa Claus, or a Secret Service agent, or a long haul truck driver, or an aerospace engineer at NASA, just to name a few examples.

• 17:56Hrishikesh Hirway?

  The show gives you an insider view into all kinds of jobs from a wide range of industries, answering questions like, what do mail carriers learn about us from our mail? There are so many jobs out there that exist only as titles in our imagination, if they even register that much. This show is a chance to reach beyond what you know, or think you know. If you're curious to learn more about the work lives of other people, check out What It's Like to Be, wherever you get podcasts.

• 18:26Hrishikesh Hirway?

  How did you first hear the track that Miles and Alex made?

• 18:29Speaker 01

  I think Miles just played it.

• 18:34Speaker 01

  And I was like, yo, what is that? And then I just had it on loop. I was just listening to it, listening to it.

• 18:42Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Yeah.

• 18:43Speaker 01

  And I don't know, I just felt really emotional, but I also felt really uplifted. It felt positive and bright, and I needed that. And so I just got into just keep playing it. And then I landed on the poem.

• 19:22Hrishikesh Hirway?

  How long had it been at that point since you'd written the poem originally?

• 19:26Speaker 01

  Two years.

• 19:28Hrishikesh Hirway?

  So what made you want to reach back to that poem for this song in that moment?

• 19:32Speaker 01

  I think it was just the hook, wishing that the love would set us free. It just felt super fitting to talk about love, what that meant to me, and then. Talk about fear.

• 20:00Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Can you tell me what you were thinking about in terms of your flow and delivery in the verses?

• 20:03Speaker 01

  Hmm, I just wanted it to feel conversational, like I could just say this to you. And also, I think I love that style of like rap where it's in the pocket. And the music is just supporting what I'm saying.

• 20:41Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Why did you want it to feel conversational?

• 20:43Speaker 01

  Because I think this is a conversation, like let's talk about it. Like if we were going around in a circle and everyone had to say what they thought love and fear was about. This is what I would say and I can pass the mic and let's have a discussion, do you know? Like, I don't know anything. And that's why I say, I think in the lyrics, I think that love is forgiving yourself. It might not be, like, I don't know. From what I think and what I feel, that's what I think it is. And it's like, once upon a time, I probably thought love was pain.

• 21:25Speaker 01

  If you don't feel pain, then that's not love then, is it?

• 21:29Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Yeah.

• 21:30Speaker 01

  And so I think, yeah, it changes and I'm just getting more understanding of what I think it means to me.

• 21:40Speaker 01

  I just wanted to feel like this is a wider conversation. I think we fear all the answers, so we don't ask the questions, yeah. I think that shit is a lethal weapon. I think we fear being naked from the fear of rejection. If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, then why are we obsessed with seeking perfection? And then we get to the end part.

• 22:01Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Yeah, after those first two verses, the song kind of shifts.

• 22:04Speaker 01

  It was an accident, that last verse.

• 22:07Speaker 02

  I'd had a section looping, I was probably working on editing for something in Pro Tools, and I had this loop going.

• 22:12Speaker 01

  It was just looping. Three, two, three, four. Three, two, three, four.

• 22:19Speaker 02

  Yes, Sim's just, you know, when she heard that, you know, she just got writing immediately.

• 22:24Speaker 01

  Can't hold me down, cause I've always been. Why do you always wanna hate when the love is? Hear me now, my check, it was one, two. One more, but one enough, so I had to get. I was just like, just keep looping it, and I'll just keep going. MJ said he got the tunes, I should pull apart. Every time I bust a lyric, I been fill a show. That was a cool moment, cause it was so accidental. You couldn't write it, yeah.

• 22:52Hrishikesh Hirway?

  I love how in this section, you change the word of the sample, like from free to three, depending on the context of what you're saying.

• 23:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 23:03Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Do you have a favorite line from that outro?

• 23:05Speaker 01

  I like Auntie Simby, what she call me when my niece turn three.

• 23:09Hrishikesh Hirway?

  That's my favorite too.

• 23:10Speaker 01

  Really?

• 23:11Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Cause I have a niece, and that just, that's so sweet. It's like a little emotional dagger you just like snuck in.

• 23:20Speaker 01

  Auntie Simby, what she call me when my niece turn? Used to bump the train to college, I would travel four. Never miss a countdown, it was five, four. Two, one, take off in the air, arm.

• 23:32Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Can you tell me about the strings that are also in this track? How did you end up deciding to add those?

• 23:37Speaker 02

  I struggled with a feeling that the chorus, you know, the main "Wishing That Love Will Set Us Free" section didn't feel, for want of a better term, chorussy enough. And I always had in my back of my mind, some of the initial references, you know, the Jackson 5 stuff, had audacious string lines. So we teamed up with an amazing string arranger, Rosie Danvers. She came around to the studio one day and I sang some ideas, loose ideas, and she went away for 10 days or so and kind of arranged some of the ideas that I sang, you know. And then we were fortunate enough to get one string day across the whole record, you know, which includes maybe six or seven songs with strings on.

• 24:17Speaker 01

  So we're in a studio called Rack in London. We have a power cut in the middle of the day. The whole studio blackout, nothing's working. So I'm like, oh my, that we literally had this one day.

• 24:32Speaker 02

  You can imagine how expensive a day with full string section, you know, in a great studio in London costs for the power to go down. So it became quite stressful very quickly. We had candles lit and we had to rewire pretty much the whole studio to bring in external power on these, you know. It was really quite a stressful day.

• 24:52Speaker 01

  The players rehearsed it in the dark. It was like we're flying through the songs or whatever. So we get to "Free", and it might have been like the second to last song we had to do strings on. But because it wasn't a priority and we're running out of time, we're like, can we just do the stuff that we need to get strings for? But Rosie was just like, let's just do this. It'll take 20 minutes, bang, bang, bang. And as soon as the first like note comes in with the strings.

• 25:27Speaker 01

  I'll never forget me and Mance just looked at each other like, yo.

• 25:38Speaker 01

  Everything about the song made even more sense. It just felt so classic and it just worked. It was perfect.

• 25:47Speaker 02

  And it did just add, you know, when I was saying I was looking for something to give that chorus that feeling of it landing and feeling special, the strings really do that.

• 26:16Hrishikesh Hirway?

  You know, if you told someone that "Free" is a song about love, their first assumption might be that it's a song about like a romantic relationship.

• 26:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:24Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Which it's not.

• 26:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, not. It's far from. I've definitely deep to like, there's more to this thing than people are telling me.

• 26:36Speaker 01

  And through my own experience, I've just come to my own thoughts and feelings about it.

• 26:47Speaker 01

  And it might change, you know what I mean? I think maybe in 10 years, I might say actually, love isn't, it's more about forgiving people just in general, not so much about self, self, self. That might be an idea.

• 27:02Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Yeah.

• 27:03Speaker 01

  You know, of what I think love is.

• 27:06Speaker 01

  So it's just like at the time, what I was feeling like, I needed to hear as reminders to myself, you know, on what I've learned over the years. But that's what I was saying earlier, like, I don't really know anything. So I think I'm down to track.

• 27:32Hrishikesh Hirway?

  And now, here's "Free" by Little Simz, in its entirety.

• 27:57Speaker 01

  I think that love is forgiving yourself. I think that love is offering your immediate help. I think that love is everything that we need in this world. I think the key is being honest and being yourself. I think love is understanding that people can change, and loving them anyway through every stage. I read all about love, then I gave it to Jade. Love is sharing knowledge, there's so much to gain. Love is every time I put pen to the page. If I don't love what I'm doing, then I'm hardly engaged, yeah. Oh god, you love me though, I am flawed. I know I'm not an innocent child, but I am yours. And if you're with me, you are safe. I know my body isn't immortal, but I am brave. I think you know it's real love when it's sincere. I'm a show, I might ain't scared, eradicate fear, yeah.

• 28:43Speaker 03

  Said that we would never, ever crash phone under pressure. Love guitar, use it to do what's hard.

• 28:53Speaker 03

  Love is something that you can't measure.

• 28:55Speaker 01

  No judgement, no pressure. It's your letter, your words, but you never. I think that fear is not trusting yourself. I think that fear is keeping true information withheld. I think fear can be exposed in abundance of wealth, and then creeps in when you're not loving yourself. Fear can be dressed in a form of protection. Fear can be the culprit of stolen progression. Can be impulsive and be an obsession. I think we fear we're not answers, so we don't ask the questions, yeah. I think that shit is a lethal weapon. I think we fear being naked from the fear of rejection. If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, then why are we obsessed with seeking perfection? Fear'll probably hear this and feel exposed. Fear works best when love isn't close. But love will never judge you because of your pain.

• 29:38Speaker 01

  Look in the mirror and say I love you unconditionally every day.

• 29:45Speaker 01

  Said that we would never, ever crash phone under pressure. Love guitar, use it to do what's hard.

• 29:51Speaker 03

  Wish that the love will set us free. Love is something that you can't measure. No judgment, no pressure. It's your letter, your words, with who you are. Wish that the love will set us free. Said that we will never, ever crash, hold under pressure. Love guitar, use it to do better. Wish that the love will set us free.

• 30:15Speaker 01

  Can't hold me down, 'cause I've always been. Why they always wanna hate when the love is? Hit me now, my check, it was one, two. One more, I want enough, so I had to get. I remember when they said, "Nothing in life is... Evil spirits cannot enter when your soul is." MJ said he got the tunes, I should pull up that. Every time I bust a lyric, I've been feeling so. Every time I'm on the stage, I've been feeling so. Auntie sent me what she called me when my knees turn. Used to bump the train to college, I would travel for. Never missed a countdown, it was five, four. Two, one, take off in the air, I'm... Shout my brothers locked in the can, trying to get. There's a war outside, pray the people go. Shout my brothers locked in the can, trying to get. There's a war outside, pray the people go.

• 30:59Speaker 01

  Shout my brothers locked in the can, trying to get. Said there's a war outside, pray the people go. Shout my brothers locked in the can, trying to get.

• 31:10Hrishikesh Hirway?

  To learn more, visit songexploder.net, where you'll find links to buy or stream free.

• 31:17Hrishikesh Hirway?

  This episode was produced by me, Mary Dolan, Craig Ely, and Kathleen Smith, with production assistance from Tiger Biscum. The episode artwork is by Carlos Lerma, and I made the show's theme music and logo. Song Exploder is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a network of independent, listener-supported, artist-owned podcasts. You can learn more about our shows at radiotopia.fm. If you'd like to hear more from me, you can sign up for my newsletter, which you can find on the Song Exploder website. And if you want to support the show another way, you can get a Song Exploder t-shirt at songexploder.net/shirt. I'm Rishi Kesh Hirway. Thanks for listening.

• 32:02Hrishikesh Hirway?

  Radiotopia.

• 32:05Hrishikesh Hirway?

  From PRX.