Singer/songwriter/producer SMITH is a true pop paradox: a wildly original artist who refuses to play by the rules but continually turns out massive hits, serving up songs that radiate raw personality despite her enigmatic presence. In the last year alone, she’s proven the immense appeal of her genre-bending ingenuity by simultaneously landing two hits on the charts in two different formats, with “Run” climbing the Top 40 and “Pathetic” charting at Alternative radio. ADIY-minded artist who produces all her output in her home studio, she also emerged as the first female musician since Billie Eilish in 2019 to have a song chart at Top 40, Hot AC, Rhythmic ,and Alternative radio, due to the smash success of her viral sensation “Lemon.” With her recent triumphs including earning a Grammy nomination for her production work on Jack Harlow’s Come Home The Kids Miss You, SMITH arrived at her unshakable sense of self-reliance after years of struggling against the mainstream pop machine—an experience that ultimately empowered her to approach all her music with absolute freedom and total devotion to her deepest impulses.
“I spent a long time trying to become a pop star, and at some point I was so exhausted with trying to fit other people’s expectations that I quit music altogether,” says SMITH. “I tried to walk away but the songs kept coming, so eventually I learned how to produce myself. Now I’m in a place where I make whatever I want without worrying about what anyone thinks, and it’s wonderful.
Originally from the Midwest, SMITH grew up immersed in music thanks to her parents, who played in rock bands throughout her childhood. “I remember being a little kid and sitting in the backs of bars and watching them play,” she says. “Music was always a huge part of my life, and I never really thought about doing anything else.” In her late teens, SMITH headed into the studio for the first time and began recording as a Christian artist, but felt undeniably conflicted about pursuing that path. “I had a lot of issues with the way that many people in that world viewed women and the LGBTQ community, and I couldn’t get behind something I didn’t fully believe in,” she says. Naming pop iconoclasts like Prince among her main inspirations, SMITH next shifted her focus to pop music but quickly encountered a whole new world of obstacles. “I was told to change so many things about myself and had to deal with so much harassment,” she recalls. “I felt like I had no control over my own life, so finally I decided I wanted nothing to do with the industry anymore.”
Within several years of stepping away from the music business, SMITH began experimenting with GarageBand and self-recording songs for her own pleasure. “I rented a studio and I’d go there and work all the time, but I never told anyone about it,” she says. “I even told myself that I wasn’t going to release anything, because I knew that would affect the whole process. I needed that time to learn without putting any pressure on myself.”
After devoting nearly two years to exploring sounds and making music on her own, SMITH released a pair of singles in 2020 (the spellbinding “Stain” and stormy yet soulful “Statue”),then expanded her talents into producing and writing for other artists, including Gucci Mane, Tay Money, and Sami Thompson. “I don’t always love being in the spotlight, so working on other people’s music is really fun,” she says. “If I can bring out the best in somebody and help them to create what they hear in their head, that’s super-exciting to me.”
In one of her first wins as a self-driven artist, SMITH cracked the top 40 on Alternative radio with her2021 single “Scab,” a gorgeously ferocious track created with her frequent collaborator justdoitBRISK. “It took me years to trust someone enough to work with them, but BRISK and I have developed a great relationship where we completely respect each other’s ideas,” she says of the Orlando-based producer.Released in June 2023, the unstoppably catchy “Lemon” marked another breakthrough for SMITH, originating as a viral hit on TikTok before taking multiple radio formats by storm. As her career gained momentum, she returned later that year with “Run”—a synth-heavy piece of alt-pop showcasing her strangely hypnotic vocal work. “Usually my songs start with an emotion that I need to get out, but ‘Run’ came from a beat that BRISKbrought in, which instantly put that melody in my head,” she says. “It turned into a song about how I’m not that great with relationships—I’m bad at checking in with people,I’m not that into socializing. I’m an artist and I’m weird, probably even weirder than you’d think.” And for her first release in 2024, SMITH offered up the brutally twisted humor of “Pathetic”—a potent collision of sinister beats and scathing lyrics, delivered with a sultry ease. “I’d written those lyrics in the fiery moment of anger and frustration at someone, without trying to fit them into any particular melody or pattern,” says SMITH. “Sometime later on BRISK and I came up with that beat by banging on the table, and I pulled those lyrics up and fit them into the melody. For the most part my songs come from just channeling whatever energy I’m feeling in that moment, instead of trying to control or direct anything.”
An incredibly prolific creative force, SMITH continues to balance her time between collaborating with other artists and working on her own music, often at a rate of a song a day. “I don’t ever push myself to write, but sometimes the songs just hit me—almost like being possessed or something,” she says. But even as she amasses an enormous amount of material, SMITH has no immediate plans of putting together an album. “In a way I feel so spoiled because I just put out songs as I make them; I always just do whatever excites me,” she says. “But in the past the business side of things put such a wedge between me and the music, and I don’t want to ever let that happen again. I feel like I was put here to make music, and I’m not going to let anything get in the way of that.