Little Simz confirmed to curate Meltdown 2025 at London’s Southbank
Little Simz has been announced as curating the 2025 edition of Meltdown at London’s Southbank Centre.
The British artist is set to curate a boundary-breaking line-up for this year’s edition of the 11-day festival, and will be taking to the stage herself as one of the performers.
Scheduled between Thursday June 12 and Sunday June 22, the event will include a number of live performances from artists hand-selected by Little Simz, as well as two weekends of free participatory programming featuring grassroots collectives and local organisations.
The first wave of names set to take part in the 2025 edition of Meltdown Festival will be announced later this spring.
“I’m super excited to be the 2025 Meltdown festival curator! My team and I are preparing 11 days of art, music, workshops and more,” Little Simz said in a new statement. “So many incredible artists have curated this festival so it’s a true honour to be a part of it. Thank you to the Southbank Centre for having me. Meltdown 2025 the Simz way is going to be epic. I’ll see you there.”
With the announcement, the rapper joins the huge list of legendary names that have curated Meltdown at Southbank Centre in the past, including David Bowie, Nick Cave, Patti Smith, Grace Jones, Christine and the Queens, Nile Rodgers, Robert Smith, David Byrne, Yoko Ono, Anohni, Massive Attack and Jarvis Cocker.
“Little Simz’s ability to forge new genre-defying ideas and her ambition to inspire the next generation of creators aligns with what the Southbank Centre’s artistic programme and vision stands for,” said Jane Beese, Head of Contemporary Music at Southbank. “We’re incredibly excited to witness the lineup she’ll curate and for the power of her great art, leadership and culture to bring people together on-site for our 30th year.”
The centre’s artistic director, Mark Ball added that Simz was chosen as she has become “such a powerful influence in London and beyond”, and added that he hopes the announcement will let “Southbank Centre become her cultural playground, where she can fully explore her musicianship, her icons and her cultural passions.”
The confirmation that Little Simz will curate Meltdown 2025 comes just days after the artist shared a cryptic message on social media, leading many fans to speculate a new album is on the way.
The English-Nigerian rapper’s last studio album was ‘NO THANK YOU’, which arrived in December 2022. Since then, she has shared new material, including closing out 2024 with new single ‘Hello, Hi’ and hinting that there would be more to come in 2025.
NME awarded ‘NO THANK YOU’ four stars in 2022, writing that the LP’s “quiet, understated release provides parallels to Kendrick Lamar’s ‘Untitled Unmastered’ release from 2016, a series of leftovers from his ‘To Pimp A Butterfly’ sessions.”
“That too had a certain looseness and freedom to the tracks, and, much like Lamar, a clear-headed Simz has something to say urgently,” it added. “The case for Simz to be recognised as a true modern great has only been strengthened with this release.”
Outside of her recent solo work, Simz has still been active, appearing on the Coldplay single ‘We Pray’, Sampha’s ‘Satellite Business 2.0’ and Wretch 32’s comeback track ‘Black And British’. She also joined forces with the Tate Modern last year to curate an evening of late-night sessions of music, workshops and conversations.
Earlier this year, she was nominated in the Hip-hop/Grime/Rap Act category for the forthcoming BRIT Awards 2025 alongside Stormzy, Central Cee, DAVE and Ghetts. It is one of five categories set to be decided for the first time ever by fans in a BRITs WhatsApp chat.
Last year’s Meltdown Festival was curated by Chaka Khan, who presented performances from Emeli Sandé, Lady Blackbird, Bruce Hornsby, Incognito and more.
Back in 2021, Little Simz spoke to NME about how she tried to be more open in her music, especially with ‘SIMBI’. “It definitely was not easy,” she said. “I struggled with it because it is very personal, like having someone read your diary. But I think I understood that this is bigger than me and I know this has the potential to help someone. Above all, it’s me saying my truth and I think there’s great power in that. There’s great strength in vulnerability, so I persevered and I’m really happy I did.”
The post Little Simz confirmed to curate Meltdown 2025 at London’s Southbank appeared first on NME.
Liberty Dunworth
NME
