At Walsall Arena on Sunday night, there was no mistaking where we were. References to Jorja Smith’s hometown, just outside Birmingham, ran throughout the evening, met each time with deafening pride from an audience of just 600 people.
Since uploading covers from her bedroom as a teenager, Jorja Smith has become one of British music’s defining voices: a Mercury and Grammy nominee and two-time Brit Award winner, Walsall has remained central to her life and work. After moving to London at 18, she returned home in 2023 in search of a reset and now divides her time between the West Midlands and the capital.
Smith has often had to remind people about Walsall’s place in her heart. “People forget I’m not from London,” she recently told The Guardian. “And I’m not from Birmingham, either!” Here, she was performing in the town where she first began singing, joined by local artists and young musicians whose ambitions she has actively supported. This was Jorja Smith’s homecoming.
The concert marked the first live show in Spotify Hometown, a new series taking artists back to the places that shaped them. For each performance, Spotify invites some of the artist’s most dedicated listeners as a thank you for their loyalty. A decade after the release of “Blue Lights” carried Smith’s voice outside the West Midlands, she returned with a brilliant set spanning the course of her career.
Backstage, the walls were covered with photographs from Smith’s childhood. In one, we see her in a princess dress, crown on her head and sceptre in hand. The Queen of Walsall, for one-night-only, returned to her throne – all hail the queen.
Fellow Walsall native Wesley Joseph, who attended the same school as Smith, opened the evening with a cool, mellow set before she took to the stage. Moving between songs from her new album, What Are the Odds, and older fan favourites including “Teenage Fantasy,” “On My Mind” and “Be Honest,” Smith held a crowd that seemed to know every pause and lyric. When she spoke, the room fell silent. She apologised for being good at singing but less adept at talking, although the crowd appeared to disagree: every word was received with rapt attention.
“Blue Lights,” the 2016 song that first introduced Smith to much of the world, opened the show. The song also pointed towards something Smith had built; in 2022, she established the Blue Lights Choir with Mrs Gardner, a music teacher at her former school. Funded by Smith, the choir brings together girls and young women from Walsall aged between 10 and 20, giving them a space to sing, form friendships and grow in confidence. Smith has previously spoken about wanting to eventually create a community hub in the town, explaining that there “wasn’t really that much” available to her while growing up. Towards the end of Sunday’s concert, the choir joined her onstage for “Greatest Gift.”
“This next song is a song that I wrote for my younger self, my 15-year-old self,” Smith told the audience. “It’s just a big hug because I’m super proud of her. I’m from Walsall. That younger me was making songs. I don’t know what she thought. She was dreaming big, but I don’t know… I’m just very grateful to be here.”
For choir member Maya, the group has offered a creative space she did not always feel was available elsewhere. “As a young South Asian girl, the creative arts aren’t always something that’s encouraged or spoken about in my community, so to see something I’ve loved for so long finally getting recognition feels so special,” she told Cold.
“I’m so grateful for the Blue Lights Choir, the sisterhood and the confidence it’s given me; I really feel like I’ve found my people. Seeing Walsall and its wonderful people celebrated in this way makes me so proud to call it home.”
Destiny similarly described joining the choir as one of the best decisions she has ever made. “It has taught me how special the creative arts and music industry is, and I’ve gained sisters to last a lifetime along the way,” she said. “Walsall being celebrated in this way really makes me so happy, because these are my roots and we really don’t get enough recognition for the talent that unfolds here.”
That lack of recognition is hardly unique to Walsall. Britain’s artistic landscape can feel overwhelmingly London-centric, with opportunities and coverage clustering around the capital despite the wealth of talent spread across the country. In music especially, smaller towns are easily folded into the identity of their nearest recognisable city.
There are signs of a more conscious effort to change this, though. Earlier this year, £19.7 million was allocated to libraries, museums and theatres across the West Midlands, including Walsall Council’s library services, as part of a wider effort to make culture more accessible. Spotify Hometown arrives at a similar moment, recognising the role played by places beyond the capital in shaping British culture.
For Alicia, who attended the choir’s first session in 2022 at the age of 15, its impact was immense. “At a time where I was in no extracurricular activities, I feel the choir found me at the perfect time,” she told Cold. Now almost 20, Alicia credits it with helping her grow “in ways beyond music.”
“Seeing Jorja collaborate with Spotify and put Walsall on the map, especially at Walsall Arena, was inspirational and shows all of us young girls in Walsall that the sky is the limit,” Alicia told Cold.
On Sunday, those young women sang beside someone who had once been another young girl from Walsall, one with an extraordinary voice and big ambitions. Their performance of “Greatest Gift” made the idea behind Hometown feel material, celebrating Smith while giving the community that formed her its own place onstage.
The performance was filmed for an exclusive concert film scheduled to premiere on Spotify later this month. The Hometown series continues with Nemzzz returning to Manchester on 12 September, followed by Beabadoobee in West London on 17 September.
