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The profile · researched 21 September 2026
Little Simz after Lotus: a lawsuit, a surprise EP and 40 minutes a night in front of somebody else's crowd
Simbiatu Ajikawo has spent 2026 doing two things at once — headlining British festivals and opening arenas for Gorillaz across North America — while a £1.7m court fight with her former producer runs in the background of the records she is making.
Islington, Age 101 and the long way round
Simbiatu Abisola Abiola Ajikawo was born in Islington on 23 February 1994, to Nigerian parents of Yoruba background, and grew up on a north London council estate with two older sisters. She went to Highbury Fields School and spent her evenings at St Mary's youth club in Islington, the same room that had Leona Lewis and Alexandra Burke passing through it. Acting came first as paid work: a children's series, Spirit Warriors, in 2010, then Youngers in 2013.
The rap career was built outside the major-label system and stayed there. She set up her own imprint, Age 101, released a run of mixtapes and EPs under it, and only signed a distribution deal with AWAL in September 2018, renewing it in June 2020. That structure explains a lot about how she works — she has never had to make a record that sounded like anything in particular.
The live apprenticeship was served in public. She played the BBC 1Xtra Prom at the Royal Albert Hall in 2015, toured with Nas, Lauryn Hill and Kehlani in 2016, and opened for Gorillaz on their Humanz tour in 2017. Ten years on, she is opening for Gorillaz again, in bigger rooms and on very different terms.
The records that changed the terms
Two debut-era albums, A Curious Tale of Trials + Persons in 2015 and Stillness in Wonderland in 2016, established the voice without breaking her out. Grey Area in 2019 did — a compressed, hard-edged record that won the Ivor Novello for Best Album in 2020. Sometimes I Might Be Introvert followed in 2021, wider in scope and orchestral in places, and took the Mercury Prize in October 2022. The same year brought a BRIT Award for Best New Artist, a second Ivor Novello for Best Contemporary Song with 'I Love You, I Hate You', and the MOBO for Album of the Year, a year after the MOBO for Best Female Act.
No Thank You arrived in December 2022 with almost no notice, and the pattern has held since: full albums punctuated by short, quickly released projects that let her test ideas without the apparatus of a campaign.
Acting has run alongside all of it rather than behind it. She played Shelley across four seasons of Top Boy on Netflix between 2019 and 2023, took a cameo in Venom: Let There Be Carnage in 2021, and appeared opposite Cillian Murphy in Steve in 2025 — a shoot that pushed the release of her sixth album back by a month.
Lotus, and the partnership it takes apart
Lotus came out on 6 June 2025 through AWAL, having been moved from 9 May because of filming. It was preceded by three singles — 'Flood' on 26 February, 'Free' on 27 March and 'Young' on 14 May — and it is the first of her albums built without Inflo, the producer behind Grey Area and Sometimes I Might Be Introvert. Miles Clinton James produced and engineered the bulk of it, with DJ Dahi and Jonah Stevens adding work on three tracks.
The split is not subtext. In January 2025 Ajikawo sued Dean 'Inflo' Cover over £1.7m in loans she says went unrepaid for more than a year, including £1m lent to secure a Sault show at the Drumsheds that she expected back by early December 2023; she has said the shortfall left her unable to settle her tax liability on time. Speaking to Billboard in April 2025 she described being 'really frustrated and hurt', and said she had abandoned four album projects during the working relationship. In October 2025 Inflo filed a counterclaim of £2.8m for management fees and other losses, denying her allegations. The first track on Lotus addresses him directly.
The record was received as her strongest in years: Metacritic put it at 86 out of 100 from 14 reviews, the Telegraph gave it four stars and called it 'powerfully honest', and the Guardian read it as a break-up album of a non-romantic kind. It reached number three on the UK albums chart and number one on the UK R&B chart.
Where she stands in September 2026
Sugar Girl, an EP, appeared on 8 May 2026 through AWAL with the same minimal warning that No Thank You had — a teased verse on Instagram, then the release. In July 2026 she was named UK beauty ambassador for Miu Miu Beauty.
The live year has been unusually busy and unusually varied. She played Coachella on 12 April, headlined Cross The Tracks at Brockwell Park in south London on 24 May, appeared at Primavera Sound in Barcelona on 6 June, guested at Gorillaz's first stadium headline show at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on 20 June, then worked through Down The Rabbit Hole in the Netherlands on 3 July, Lollapalooza in Chicago on 30 July and Osheaga in Montreal on 1 August. Her Forwards headline on Clifton Down in Bristol on 30 August drew the year's most emphatic review, Far Out calling it possibly her best headline set to date and describing a career-spanning setlist delivered by 'clearly a future Glastonbury headliner'.
Since 17 September she has been back in a support slot, opening for Gorillaz on the North American leg of The Mountain Tour alongside Deltron 3030. The leg runs to 31 October and takes in Madison Square Garden on 29 September, TD Garden on 1 October, Scotiabank Arena on 4 October, the Kia Forum on 24 October and Climate Pledge Arena on 31 October. Songkick also lists her on a run of UK outdoor dates in summer 2027, including St James' Park in Newcastle on 1 July, Heaton Park in Manchester on 3 and 4 July and the London Stadium on 9 July.
On stage now
There are two distinct shows running at the moment, and they are not the same length or shape. The headline version was set out at the O2 Arena on 17 October 2025, the London date of the Lotus run: close to two hours, a stage built in the shape of a lotus flower with the live band in the middle, a trapdoor used to deliver Emma Corrin's spoken opening, flames in parallel rows down the catwalk and lighting rigs that dropped during a mid-set DJ section. PÉJÚ opened with a DJ set and Greentea Peng played thirty minutes before her. Guests included Wretch 32 and Cashh on 'Blood', Deela on the then-unreleased 'Dide', and Sampha arriving through the trapdoor to play 'Blue' on piano. The reviewer scored it nine out of ten.
The festival version compresses that into roughly ninety minutes. At Cross The Tracks on 24 May 2026 she opened with 'Thief', moved through 'Flood', 'Young', 'Two Worlds Apart', 'I Love You, I Hate You', 'Introvert', '101 FM' and 'Venom', broke for the DJ segment, then ran 'Mood Swings', 'Game On', 'SOS' and 'Open Arms' with Deela, brought Obongjayar out for 'Lion' and 'Point and Kill', and finished on 'Only', 'Selfish', 'Free', 'Woman' and 'Gorilla'.
The Gorillaz support slot is a different job again — a fixed, early window with no room for guests. In Orlando on 17 September she played five songs between 7.30pm and 8.15pm; in Miami the following night she had nine songs and a 8.05pm to 8.45pm slot, and came back during the headline set for 'Garage Palace'. The material is the same, stripped to the parts that land fastest on a crowd that did not buy tickets for her.
The show, now
What a show looks like right now depends on which billing it is. Until 31 October she is the opening act on the North American leg of Gorillaz's Mountain Tour, sharing support duties with Deltron 3030 across arenas from Charlotte to Seattle: a fixed slot of roughly forty to forty-five minutes, five to nine songs, no guests, and in Miami on 18 September a return during the headline set for 'Garage Palace'. Her own festival headline sets run closer to ninety minutes and follow a settled shape — 'Thief' to open, a block from Lotus and Sometimes I Might Be Introvert, a mid-set DJ section, then guest features and a run of older material to finish, closing on 'Woman' and 'Gorilla', as at Cross The Tracks in Brockwell Park on 24 May 2026, where Deela and Obongjayar both came out. The full production, last seen on the Lotus run, is bigger again: the O2 Arena on 17 October 2025 ran close to two hours on a lotus-shaped stage with the band in the centre, a trapdoor used for Emma Corrin's spoken introduction and later for Sampha, flames along the catwalk, and support from PÉJÚ and Greentea Peng; the reviewer gave it nine out of ten. Recent write-ups are consistent on the same point — Far Out called her Forwards festival headline in Bristol on 30 August 2026 possibly her best yet and named her a future Glastonbury headliner.
Researched from en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · festivalsandgigs.com · faroutmagazine.co.uk · setlist.fm · setlist.fm · songkick.com
Pictures
Photographs from Wikimedia Commons, credited
JoshPopov · CC BY 4.0
GeorgeMichaelBaker · CC BY-SA 4.0
Jwslubbock · CC BY-SA 4.0
Raph_PH · CC BY 2.0
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