100 Greatest Songs of the 20’s So Far #73 Koffee – Pull Up

Released: 2022

The whys of being a pop star are rarely worth exploring, so some of the conscious narrative about Koffee’s second album Gifted – that it was in places ambitiously bland – in reality constituted a fuss about next to nothing.

Mikalyla Simpson’s rise to that point had been meteoric; brought up in Jamaica’s Spanish Town and signed not long after her tribute track Legend was repped by Usain Bolt, the singer’s debut EP Rapture won a Grammy, making her in turn the youngest artist to do so on the category – and to date the only female.

Gifted flits between genres (accoustic balladry, R&B) alongside reggae’s more familiar post Marley avenues (Dancehall, roots, lovers rock). It’s a balance that doesn’t reflect a spray and pray approach, but one acknowledging instead the untold influence that Jamaican music has on contemporary pop. Pull Up was it’s brain annexing highlight, a song as addictive as sunshine itself, simple but in no way flimsy. Pop stars after all do these things, make music you can sing along to and lots of people will be able to like. It’s really, really, not that deep.