Historically, the Drops series of EPs has served as a platform for Little Simz to express her more immediate creative thoughts and inner feelings, parallel to—and sometimes in concert with—her fully realised, full-length projects. Drop 7 presents a curious window into the rapper’s current moment in time, spread across seven snapshots seemingly snatched in the well-timed flash of strobe lights. When she last checked in on a Drops release (battling through lockdown isolation and a bout of self-doubt to create Drop 6 in 2020) Simz was still a year away from Sometimes I Might Be Introvert, the game-changing album that garnered the long-overdue recognition meritorious of such a singular talent. Undeniably at the top of her game right now, Simz channels that potent self-confidence through the fervent, primal Jakwob production—the powerfully still eye in a storm of commanding drums and reverberating echoes. Opening track “Mood Swings” foreshadows the pendulum sweep that occurs between “SOS” and “I Ain’t Feelin It”, separating the EP into two neatly opposing halves. The first is front-loaded with heart-pounding, club-ready beats and an untouchable, unrelenting Simz: “Torch” borrows the signature Jersey-bounce squeak, “Fever” marks a return to São Paulo (the setting for 2021’s collaboration between Jakwob and Simz, “Rollin Stone”) for a bilingual, baile-funk-infused flirtation. The back end sees Simz floating her meditations on the less palatable side of success over intricate, yet reserved instrumentation, closing out with “Far Away”, a lovelorn lament that drenches the racing percussion in melancholic piano chords. Whether or not Drop 7 is a one-off experiment or an intriguing hint at a new direction, it’s electrifying to experience new facets of Simz’s consummate artistry. She proves herself as compelling as ever.