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New Video: Little Simz Slays More Than Verses In 'Dead Body'

LANGUAGE ADVISORY: This song contains explicit language.

Giving someone a compliment can turn gruesome pretty quickly. One can "slay" in a great outfit. A new song can be "killer." A rapper can "murder" her verse or the other artists in a song where her flow is clearly dominant. Young British rapper Little Simz has earned the figurative compliment, but she aims to go literal in her violent, unflinching new video, "Dead Body."

As a rapper, Little Simz (Simbi Ajikawo) has an even-keeled delivery style. You could call it mature, or controlled, or wise beyond her 21 years. In the context of "Dead Body," an intense song even without director Jeremy Cole's grim visuals, she's downright coldblooded. Which is exactly what she seems to be going for.

Simz used the premiere of this video to announce that she's self-releasing her full-length debut, A Curious Tale of Trials + Persons, on Sept. 18, and the song reads like nothing if not a declaration of intent. According to a press release, the short film explores the corruption of impending fame as it wears and tears on its narrator's sanity and soul. What it does more directly is solidify a take-no-prisoners new voice in hip-hop.

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