In 2016, Walsall teenager  emerged with , a <person>Dizzee Rascal</person>-sampling lullaby narrating black British youth’s fear of the police. This impressive debut led to co-signs from <person>Drake</person>, <person>Stormzy</person>, and <person>Kendrick Lamar</person>, not to mention the 2018 Brits critics’ choice award. The 20-year-old’s first album finds her standing on her own two feet. A gentle record of lithe, accomplished slow jams, it toys with a myriad of genres: while delicate R&B is the most obvious reference, there’s a UK dance nod too – not in the literal way of , her 2017 garage collaboration with <person>Preditah</person>, but that distinctly polished percussive sound is evident throughout, in the slinkiness of and the humid undercurrent of The One.
The social commentary is limited to Blue Lights and the soft rap of freestyle Lifeboats (“Why do we watch them drown / We’re too selfish in the lifeboats”), but the album’s appeal lies especially in <person>Smith</person>’s silken accounts of despondent romances – soaring, hopeless ballads about adolescent crushes. Ebbing and flowing with daydreams and a glossy but gritty pulse, Lost & Found is quietly, confidently remarkable.