A lot of musicians will fib and say they don’t pay attention to industry awards, such as the Grammys and the Brits. And that’s exactly what Jorja Smith does. Except the 21-year-old soul singer from Walsall might actually be telling the truth. Tonight the Grammys will be presented in Los Angeles; Alicia Keys is the host, Dolly Parton the guest of honour. Smith was so oblivious to this fact that she booked a show, halfway round the world, in Western Australia for the same day. Then it was announced in December that she was up for Best New Artist.

“Literally the day before I was talking to my boyfriend [producer Joel Compass] because he makes music and he wanted to come out to LA around that time just to work with some people,” she says. “And I was like: ‘Oh, I reckon I’ll do the same, but maybe next year…’ Then the day after I get a message from his manager: ‘Congratulations!’ I was like, ‘What for?’ And then I saw. I didn’t even know.”

So how did Smith celebrate? She looks a bit confused, like it’s a trick question. “Hugged my boyfriend,” she replies. “And that was it.”

Our conversation is taking place in a cab on the way to Heathrow. Smith is heading out to New Zealand. She’ll honour the first few days of her tour but then – sorry Fremantle – duck out early to zip across to the Grammys. She’s a long shot to win the award: her debut album, Lost & Found, which was released last summer, didn’t crack the top 40 in the US, and she’s up against established names such as Dua Lipa and the R&B star HER. But, again, if Smith is remotely stressed about the company she’s keeping, she’s not showing it.

“It’s great being… I wouldn’t say up against, it’s just great being recognised among these talented people,” she says. “People like HER… Who else is in there? I knew when I looked, but now I’ve forgotten. Sorry.”

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To be fair to Smith, it can’t be easy keeping track of all the awards she’s up for. Since winning the Critics’ Choice at the 2018 Brits – which, from Adele to Sam Smith to Rag’n’Bone Man, has a near-unerring hit-rate for predicting future success – she’s been shortlisted for the Mercury Prize and she returns to the Brits later this month with three more nominations: best British female solo, British album and British breakthrough act.

If Smith isn’t on your radar right now, you might want to rectify that. And it won’t take long to realise what the fuss is about. Smith is often name-checked with Sade, Alicia Keys and Adele and it’s true that her vocals, smoky yet somehow soothing, have a richness and complexity that comes along rarely. Introducing her at a show in Toronto in 2017, the Canadian rapper Drake described her as: “One of the most incredible voices, incredible talents and incredible humans I’ve ever met.”

Such attention could, and should, be head-spinning. There is a moment, when we are bombing down the A4, where she pops a brace into her mouth and it’s genuinely shocking to realise – to be reminded really – that’s she’s only 21. Three years ago she was sitting her A-levels. When Drake was heaping praise on her, she’d not long given up a job as a barista in Starbucks. She starts our conversation warily, but quickly warms up. There’s a preternatural assurance here, one that explains how a young woman from the West Midlands, growing up with no connections in the industry, finds herself in LA tonight waiting to find out if she’s won another life-changing award.

Smith’s mother, Jolene, a jewellery designer, was the first to notice that she might have a special voice. “When I was eight I sang at church in front of everyone,” Smith recalls. “My mum used to make me sing, tell people I could sing and I hated that. I was so embarrassed!” She played piano and wrote her first song, aged 11, titled Life is a Path Worth Taking, but she concedes that life at home with her younger brother and parents – dad, Peter, was a benefits officer who played in a neo-soul band named 2nd Naicha – didn’t give her very much material.

“When I was younger I wasn’t really going through anything traumatic or bad,” says Smith. “I have my parents and I went to school, didn’t really get in trouble. I was naughty at home; yeah, still am. But I liked making stories up and turning them into songs.”

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Her teenage years brought insecurity, about her looks and, at times, about being mixed race. “All my friends were white, they were all slim and had long hair,” says Smith. “I didn’t want to have big lips or a bum. In school you’re so confined to a small space and the boys like the blonde girls and they didn’t like me. But it’s all right, I got over it.”

Music became more serious when, at the age of 15, she was bought a MacBook. On the program GarageBand, Smith would record covers and upload videos to YouTube; one of these, her take on Alex Clare’s Too Close, found her a manager. After school, she left Walsall for south London, where she lived with relatives and took a job in Starbucks. All the while, Smith was writing, putting out tracks on Soundcloud, and it was one of these – Where Did I Go? – that found its way to Drake. He made contact on Instagram, said the song had kept him sane on a long flight, and asked her to do a duet on a song called Get It Together. Smith, scarcely believably, said no, because in her words: “I didn’t write it, I didn’t know what I was talking about.” But she changed her mind a year later and the track appeared on his ubiquitous 2017 mixtape More Life.

Before the release of Lost & Found, Smith was mainly known for such collaborations: with Drake, and on the Kali Uchis track Tyrant, and on Kendrick Lamar’s soundtrack for the Black Panther movie; she also shared vocals with Stormzy on a song of her own, Let Me Down. These were positive experiences, she says, but it’s a relief now that she doesn’t always get asked about, say, what Drake smells like. Or have to deny that they are dating: a rumour that blossomed in early 2017 after the pair was seen late-night shopping at the Co-op in Walsall after a gig in Birmingham. Smith clarified that he had tagged along when she was buying wine gums and tampons, and that was that.

“It was never part of my plan to work with Kendrick or Drake or Kali, but they just added to everything,” says Smith now. “Because then I got opened up to a whole new Drake world, a whole new Kendrick world and a Kali world. So I got new fans from it and maybe they were waiting for me to put a project out and then they liked that, hopefully.”

Smith’s success is all the more astonishing for the detail that she isn’t backed by a major label. There’s a simple reason for that: she doesn’t much like being told what to do. That clear-headedness could be seen at the Observer’s photo shoot. “If I don’t like something, I won’t wear it,” says Smith, who has now changed into her travelling outfit of a Mondrian-ish Nike tracksuit, with her hair scraped back into a tight bun. She giggles: “I have a lot of control, yeah.

Lady in red: Jorja Smith in concert at O2 Shepherds Bush Empire, London, 3 November 2016. Photograph: Richard Isaac/Rex/Shutterstock

“I’ve just always done it this way,” she continues. “I did a distribution deal for my album, but I’ve always been independent without a major-label record deal. And I’m fine. I just feel the same as I was when I moved to London. My team has got bigger, but it’s still really small. How can you have problems when you’re doing what you want and no one’s actually telling you no? Not that no one’s telling me no. But no one’s telling me, ‘You must do this!’ or, ‘You can’t do this!’”

It’s tempting to offer Smith patronising advice, and she gets that a lot. People she meets – journalists, industry execs – do it all the time. Why doesn’t she write more fast songs? That’s the main one. “People mention how my songs are quite slow,” says Smith. “Well, cool. If you don’t want to listen to slow songs, don’t listen to me. I’ve been asked, ‘If you hear music in the charts, it’s upbeat, why don’t you want to write music like that?’ But I write something that I think’s good. With this album I wanted to make something classic. Something that doesn’t just get played once and then left in your music library.”

This is the point: Smith is doing all right on her own. Her dad keeps an eye on the charts – Lost & Found reached number three in the UK – but again, she feigns complete indifference.

“No, I don’t look at sales,” she says. “As long as no one tells me I’m in red, no one tells me I’m in debt, and I can still pay my rent and feed my dog, then I’m fine. And feed myself, of course. I’m good with my money so I’m not really worried about that.”

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We’re now idling in the drop-off parking spots at Heathrow. This is Smith’s life now. So busy, so in demand that work expands into almost every small fissure of the day. Her only downtime is when she’s sleeping or running 5k at the gym: “I only need to think about not falling off the treadmill rather than thinking about this email I know needs an answer.”

That’s fame, I suggest. “Don’t want to be famous,” Smith shoots back. “I’m not famous. People” – she pauses, picks her words – “know about me. No, do you know what? I don’t have goals or bucket lists because I don’t like being disappointed. But famous? Famous is like Rihanna. I’m not Rihanna. I’ve got a lot of work to do. I’d like to be successful. That’s what I’d like. And happy.”

As for what’s next, Smith just wants to get back to writing. “Or else I’ll never put out another album. And this year I will write more stuff.”

And oh, horse riding. For her next video, which Smith plans to direct herself, of course, she wants to gallop on a horse, bareback. There are only two problems here: one, that is really difficult; and two, Smith has next to no experience on horses. But, as ever, she is unfazed. “I’ve only told you that,” she says, opening the car door, “so let’s see if it happens.”

Jorja Smith’s latest single, Don’t Watch Me Cry, is out now

Fashion credits: editor Jo Jones; production and styling assisted by Bemi Shaw; makeup by Carol Lopez at Carol Hayes Management using Marc Jacobs Beauty; hair by Zateesha Barbous using Angel En Province; manicure by Pria Bharma using The Gel Bottle; pedicure by Izabelle Bellamy using Nails Inc; fashion assistant Penny Chan; photographer’s assistants Joe Murphy and Louie Mire