Boundaries are important. Eliminate fear. Honor your truth and feelings. Emotions are energy in motion. These affirmations are the guiding narrative no thanks, the fifth studio album from Little Sims. In the newly released 10-minute short film directed by Gabriel Moses, the British rapper uses five songs from the album to reinforce such strong declarations.
Throughout the film, Simms takes the lead role surrounded by other black actors to reject not only the accolades provided through external credibility, but also the harmful myth of the strong black woman that is often stigmatized. It destroys the sympathy of the human struggle. that do not fit the imagined narrative presented to them.
“Everybody’s so obsessed with the CEO / She’s probably got a lot of problems that she’ll never show / Deal with the dark with a white nose,” she sings on “Broken.” “A poker face in action, going on a show / Free scrutinized about the truth about the system / All he wanted was the promotion of women.” As the song plays, the camera flashes between angry women, one holding a gun, another physically trying to release the anger from her body, and another grieving. The Sims himself punches his fists in a pool of water.
In “X,” an all-black singer creates a frenzy around Sims as he raps about division. The biblical echoes of Village Soul’s backing vocals close the film’s sections driven by soldiers’ imagery, including one riding through a clearing on horseback while their bodies burn. .
Sims only partially gets through the opening verse for “Sideways,” but unleashes his power on “Silhouette” and “Hit on Fire,” where he pushes back against using foreign concepts to define his sense of self. . On the latter, she raps: “It was never looking for results / Now every time you do something, you need a beat (f– my heart) / Please keep your head when you’re in the maze Go along/’cause navigatin’ fame is something you’re never trained for.
As the Voice singer returns for “Hit on Fire” in the film’s most powerful scene, the camera follows Sims, dressed in white, in front of a mirror. There, she sits on the rocks and admires dozens of white people. “Am I worried or am I happy?” She had just asked in the previous verse. “Am I calm or am I indifferent?”
