Jorja Smith: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert

June 11, 2018, Sidney Madden It s a good thing the weather was gloomy the day Jorja Smith rolled in for her Tiny Desk concert. Even though the skies threatened rain and thunder, the overcast light lingering in our dimmed office space allowed the teardrop pendant lights, hung from the ceiling by her lighting team, to cast the desk in a warm, honeyhued glow. And while the nimble guitar strings and doubletime drums of her supporting band was enough to dizzy the focus in the room, it was the U. K. singer s slow, silky cadence that anchored the performance in tranquility. As Smith worked her way up the scales to each high note in On My Mind (a track usually sung over a reverberated garage beat) and Teenage Fantasy (a ballad to love lost written when she was 16), there wasn t an ounce of pressure evident in her face or body language. When she closed her eyes to deliver the rap verse of Blue Lights, the antiinjustice song that first positioned her as a Sou