Glastonbury 2024: Watch Little Simz powerfully perform ‘Woman’
While Glastonbury Festival has previously been accused of playing it safe when it comes to its bookings on the Pyramid Stage, Little Simz’s proved the decision to allow her to play before Coldplay was an inspiring choice.
During festival season, the term ‘future headliner’ gets sprinkled around like confetti and is often overused. It can also add pressure on acts who may only have one album to their name that have put on a promising performance on the Woodsies Stage, but Little Simz, who is now five studio albums deep into her career, showed she’s ready to take that next step.
The Mercury Prize-winner has been keeping herself out of the spotlight, and maintaining all of her focus on her prestigious slot at Glastonbury, which is her only live date of the year. Needless to say, this quality-over-quantity approach paid off significantly on the Pyramid Stage.
Simz made her Glastonbury debut in 2016 when she took to West Holts, returning to headline the same stage six years later. In between the two performances, she turned The Park into the Grey Area in 2019, providing one of the weekend’s most impressive sets despite her mid-afternoon billing. Despite her previous showcases in Pilton, it’s the Pyramid Stage that’s rightly now her home.
Performing before a headliner of Coldplay’s size can be a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, many are agonisingly waiting for the main event and not interested in anything else apart from their favourite band. However, as Little Simz proved, it gives artists a chance to win over a mass crowd who may not be familiar with their work.
Upon being announced to perform, Simz told the BBC: “I think my Glastonbury journey has just been so unique, but, you know, the fact that they’ve supported me and kept bringing me back to do bigger stages, different times and stuff. Yeah, it really is. It is special.”
The hip-hop star added: “I remember walking off [in 2022] and saying, ‘I’ll see you next time on the Pyramid’, and it actually happened.”
Following her impressive performance at Worthy Farm, it somewhat feels inevitable that Simz will return to Glastonbury in the future as a headliner and become only the second British rapper, after Stormzy, to achieve the honour. Coldplay certainly have a difficult act to follow on the Pyramid Stage.
Watch the footage below of Simz turning Worthy Farm into a carnival with her empowering anthem, ‘Woman’, originally taken from her 2021 album, Sometimes, I Might Be Introvert.
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