When Little Simz’s 2021 album Sometimes I Might Be Introvert was released to widespread acclaim and later awarded the Mercury Prize, there was a sense that the music artist (real name Simbiatu Abisola Abiola Ajikawo) was finally getting her flowers. It seems fitting that three years later – another acclaimed album, the surprise drop No Thank You, sandwiched in between – her new album Lotus features a still life of a flower on the front cover.

The album art was developed by Simz and Yout, the Brixton-based creative studio run by Jeremy Ngatho Cole and Marco Grey, who have previously collaborated with the likes of Ezra Collective and Jeshi. Lotus is Simz’s first album that doesn’t feature a portrait of her on the cover, largely because they didn’t want to distract from her musical storytelling. “I think we agreed quite early on that this was the time to have a body of work where the music can do the talking on its own,” explains Ngatho Cole.

This was a conscious choice: hidden amongst the grit and angst, Simz is displaying a lot of vulnerability on the record, which reflects on themes of betrayal. (A quick search will bring up theories about who the subject is.) “It was a response to a lot of stuff that she’d gone through the year before,” explains Ngatho Cole, who felt a responsibility to do justice to the “very recent, raw experience” she was expressing. “I think it was a lot for me to react to, because obviously, she’s not just a collaborator, she’s a friend. And to hear someone who’s gone through stuff, it’s really difficult, but also it gave more purpose to everything that we wanted to do.”

The black and white image of a slightly weathered lotus flower seemed to evoke the calm after the storm. “Capturing it at a moment where it’s still but it’s survived and it’s still holding strong was very relevant to I think where Simz was at the time when making the record and when we started the creative,” he explains.

“We went through so many different avenues. We went through portraiture, we went through illustration, painting, and we settled on this because it just felt it had a purity to it that we could then expand from,” he continues. This includes the more intense music videos by Dave Meyers and Salomon Ligthelm, and the flashes of hot pink that burst through in the design – a nod to the “post-punk energy” of some of the tracks.

Another tangent is the series of striking images shot by Thibaut Grevet that’s trickled out in the build up to the album release. “Thibaut was part of the early discussions with the world building and the campaign. I think he was a real important element to when we started building this world, when we were throwing in ideas,” Ngatho Cole recalls.

Thibaut Grevet created this whole new otherworldly being, and I think it was really to match the energy of everything that she was going through at the time

While Grevet didn’t end up shooting the album artwork, he was instrumental in shaping the album’s visual tone, his grainy, distressed textures chiming with the weathered theme of the album cover, as well as some of its mystery. “With the campaign portraits, we always wanted to do something that also put Simz in a whole new light. So he created this whole new otherworldly being, and I think it was really to match, again, the energy of everything that she was going through at the time,” Ngatho Cole says. “So that was a real inspiration for where the photos came from.”

Though she surrounds herself with talented creatives, Simz herself has long been a creative force of nature, according to Ngatho Cole. He recalls her having a “clear vision that was way beyond her years”, even when they first met over a decade ago as they were both starting to gain momentum in their respective careers.

He started off shooting a few music videos and designing some creative assets, and has gradually become a key creative collaborator with an involvement in pretty much every album since then. He remembers 2019’s Grey Area being a significant turning point for them both, marking her first major album and his first album art project.

“That was [my] first jump into campaign creative direction, which I’d never done before, and opened up a lot to me. I think that was really exciting, understanding how a whole campaign can work together, from the cover to the merch to the billboards to online banners,” he recalls. “That gave me a hunger to want to do more.”

What came next was yet another milestone for them both. “Sometimes I Might Be Introvert was the first project we did intentionally with a run up and a plan beforehand of really building a world. I think that exposed us both to a lot of new things and grew our understanding of visual language and music, and how it’s really important to get them working [together].”

Because of the approach to the music, we wanted to do something that really brings the audience into Simz’s heart and feels quite immersive

Ngatho Cole was also involved in No Thank You, mainly doing some design work. “I think Simz just carried that one on her own shoulders, really. She ran at that campaign,” he recalls. His biggest contribution was working on the tour visuals, which exposed him to yet another part of the process. “That was a big step out of my comfort zone, but one of the most amazing creative experiences I’ve had. I think it’s something else. Doing work and then seeing people react to it in the flesh with you is really incredible, as opposed to sharing it and hoping that people are enjoying and hoping it’s going well.”

That experience and mutual trust has upped the bar for the Lotus tour. “She wanted us to approach this tour with a whole new energy, so it sets it apart from the last tour and that world,” Ngatho Cole says. “She’s back to having a full band for this tour, that’s the first difference. But also, rather than having a screen design as the backdrop, we’re working on actually building a structure, a large stage piece that envelops the stage and is really the centrepiece for the tour.” He hints that the visuals will evolve from the album artwork. “I think that’s where it was really helpful for us to work with a still life and do something that’s kind of neutral. It gives us so much room to grow that world in all the little details.”

While the stakes and the crowds are growing (the London and Manchester dates are, remarkably, Simz’s first arena shows), the team are trying to find creative ways to maintain a sense of intimacy, particularly given the vulnerable nature of this album. “We really want to do something that feels of a huge scale, but because of, I guess, the approach to the music, do something that really brings the audience into Simz’s heart and feels quite immersive, which is hard when you’re doing something of a huge scale,” Ngatho Cole says. “So that’s really the focus of this.”

It doesn’t feel hyperbole to say that Simz is prolific. Besides releasing Lotus and preparing for a European tour, she has also been busy curating this year’s Meltdown festival at London’s Southbank Centre (joining the ranks of Grace Jones, David Byrne, and Robert Smith) and shooting an undisclosed film, which incidentally delayed the album release by a few weeks.

I think Simz has more experience than some of these label execs that I’ve worked with. She knows what she’s doing

“Her work rate’s unmatched,” Ngatho Cole agrees. “There’s so much Simz has done that no one even knows she’s done because she hasn’t put it out. But she’s constantly just ticking and constantly creating. She can’t sit still or stop. If she’s sitting still for a minute, she’s like, I’ve got to write the next thing. I’ve got to do this. But it’s cool. It’s a really inspiring energy to be around.”

The volume of output is self-initiated rather than something a record label has pushed onto her. Simz has long sat outside the major label system by choice, and she has been vocal about the challenges and pressures this creates, having had to cancel her North American tour in 2022 due to unforeseen astronomical costs. Foregoing a major recording contract doesn’t suddenly redirect label fees to artists’ pockets; there are still challenges, just different ones. You might not have a label exec breathing down your neck to make TikTok content, but you’re also burdened with a whole other set of pressures, financial and otherwise. It’s a path that Simz has chosen for herself – but what is that like for her creative collaborators?

“Obviously, there are the basic challenges, like budgets won’t be as huge, but I think that doesn’t outweigh the creative freedom that I guess we have. I think that’s much more valuable to us. I work with a lot of artists who are with majors and do have big management systems and sometimes it’s quite suffocating, I think – not just for us, but for the artists themselves, and the distance [stopping] us being able to have a one-to-one conversation can sometimes be what gets in the way of the project being truly brilliant. So I think the fact that Simz works the way she does, it’s really, really liberating for, I think, an artist to work with her as well.

“Also she’s really open. She’s really open, but also very clear on things that she likes or doesn’t like as well, which is good – that’s useful,” he continues. “And she’s incredibly experienced. I think Simz has more experience than some of these label execs that I’ve worked with. She’s released more projects than they might have. She knows what she’s doing.”

The heights she is reaching are testament to her grit and resilience, which she has had since day one, according to Ngatho Cole. “It’s been a really long journey. We’ve been working together at times when there was no-one in the audience and there was no-one buying the records and there was no-one backing it. And I think if you’re in the major label system, that process, you get through it faster. But I think kudos to Simz for sticking on her own; she’s really grown her own audience that are really unique and really celebrate her.”

Lotus by Little Simz is released on Friday 6 June via AWAL Recordings; yout.work