The collaboration builds around a sample of Brandy’s 2002 deep cut “Love Wouldn’t Count Me Out” from Full Moon
Brandy’s Full Moon deep cut “Love Wouldn’t Count Me Out” sets the stage for AJ Tracey and Jorja Smith‘s uncertain contemplations on their latest collaboration “Crush.” The record arrives alongside a music video directed by LateMilk, which finds the London rapper and R&B star coming together for a moody meeting over coffee.
“Like my girls how I like my coffee, sweet/Or like my Hennessy, neat/I don’t wanna wear my heart on my top or sleeve unless it’s the CDG,” Tracey raps on the opening verse. “Like, baby girl, be easy/I’ll hold your hand, but still be greazy/2K23 LON Weezy/Fuck FaceTime, come see me in 3D.” Smith falls into the cycle of their back and forth in her own verse before diving into a silky smooth chorus, singing: “I listened when you told me/I cannot be sorry, boy, l’ve tried/I wish you’d just hold me/I have done this way too many times/Oh, you wanna stand with me now/Yeah, you want to ride when it all falls down/I wish you’d just hold me.”
“Crush” marks the first official collaboration between Tracey and Smith, whose remixed cover of Sweet Female Attitude’s “Flowers” for BBC Radio 1 Live Lounge went viral in 2019.
In 2023, Smith released Falling or Flying, her first full-length LP since her 2018 breakthrough Lost & Found, which wrestled with similar attempts to put herself first. “Really, I should just go off how I feel, because my gut feeling is actually always correct and I’ll just be ignoring it,” she previously told Rolling Stone. “At the end of it, who does it all come down to? Me. And if I’m not happy, then what happens?”
