Pizza-inspired
Irish musician Jess Smyth plies silky vocals and soul-tinged melodies over hip-hop beats
Capturing the soft and hazy twilight of an afterparty, Jess Smyth’s
music has garnered a lot of attention since her emergence back in 2017. The 21-year-old performs under the moniker Biig Piig, a name she saw on a pizza menu: she told Dazed last year that it “puts no pressure on me to be a certain way – I can be a mess, and I can also be cute and put together”.
Born in Cork, Smyth spent her childhood between
Spain and
Ireland, before ending up in west London, where she initially worked as a late-night poker dealer. More crucially, after Smyth’s move to
London she became a member of Nine8, a collaborative collective of DIY artists including Lava La Rue. Since then, Biig Piig has been releasing tracks with soul-tinged, slinky melodies and silky vocals above gentle hip-hop beats, weaving in and out of introspective thoughts on escapism, romances, work and friendships while dipping fluidly between English and Spanish.