In her latest offering, “Lion,” Little Simz bares her fangs—not to terrorize, but to awaken. Released into a world teetering between identity crises and cultural rebirths, the track is equal parts war cry and elegy. But beneath the percussive authority and the ancestral cadence of Obongjayar’s spiritual interjections, there is an unexpected dedication coursing through its marrow: Marilyn Monroe.

This is not the Marilyn of mass-market calendars or cinematic nostalgia. No—Simz digs beneath the surface gloss, beneath the peroxide curls and diamond glamour, and finds there a fractured kindred spirit. And in that buried soul, she erects a mirror—one that reflects her own dualities, her rage, her grace, her own complex navigation of visibility and self-preservation. “Lion,” as a composition, becomes more than a song; it is a spiritual séance, a tributed visit to Monroe not as an icon but as a memoir—a remembered soul veiled in smoke and myth.

Marilyn as Mirror: The Myth Reclaimed

Marilyn Monroe stands as one of the most over-referenced women in the canon of pop culture. For most, she is frozen in time: white halter dress fluttering in the breeze, ruby lips parted in endless invitation. Yet that image, burnished into history, was never the whole truth. Beneath the velvet curves and whispering voice lay a deeply intelligent, wounded woman grappling with performance as both livelihood and curse. Her image was a costume she couldn’t remove.

Little Simz recognizes this with striking acuity. Throughout her discography, but especially in “Lion,” she performs her own tug-of-war with perception. “Lion” is not an homage—it is a reclamation. Monroe, in Simz’s lens, is no longer a damsel or decoration. She becomes something elemental, something archetypal: the wounded oracle, the glamorized ghost who still burns in our collective conscience. Simz doesn’t sing about Monroe; she sings to her, through her, with her.

“Lion” as Visceral Dialogue

The beat of “Lion” is ritualistic—almost shamanic. It stomps and breathes with intention, each percussive strike mimicking a footstep toward ancestral ground. Over this terrain, Obongjayar chants from somewhere between heaven and soil, grounding the track in African cosmology. Into this, Little Simz injects her monologue—not brash, not boastful, but controlled like a monastic pulse. Her tone is elemental. It conjures spirits. It remembers.

She revisits not just Monroe’s glamour but her torment. The loneliness, the gaslighting, the frustration of a woman whose intellect was minimized beneath the lens of desire. Simz, too, navigates a terrain where image can precede meaning. And in “Lion,” she rejects it:

“I’m not your muse, your mirror, your monologue.”

There is fury in her voice, yes, but also mourning. It is the fury of being misunderstood, the ache of watching history distort the truth of a woman. Simz’s lyrics tear into these fabrications—not just Monroe’s, but her own. And in doing so, she performs what Monroe was denied: the telling of one’s own myth.

Beauty as a Burden, Voice as Salvation

Monroe’s beauty was both her ticket and her trap. She played roles not because they fulfilled her artistically, but because they were the only ones offered. Offstage, she studied acting rigorously, sought psychological healing, and rebelled quietly against the studios that commodified her. There was always more to her than the camera revealed.

Little Simz—young, brilliant, British-Nigerian—knows this well. Though celebrated for her skill, she too is often seen through lenses that minimize complexity. In her earlier work, Simz has invoked Monroe not just for iconography but for depth. On “I Love You, I Hate You” and “Miss Understood,” she sketches out the emotional costs of being placed in the spotlight while trying to retain sovereignty. She, like Monroe, refuses to be framed.

In “Lion,” this refusal becomes law. The track strips away polish and plunges into sacred honesty. Simz resists objectification not by withdrawal but by weaponizing vulnerability. In doing so, she doesn’t just sing for herself—she reclaims every woman who was ever devoured by the myth of beauty.

The Memoir Within the Music

When Simz visits Monroe’s “memoir,” she isn’t referencing a text. She’s communing with an emotional archive—an inherited knowledge. This isn’t historical homage; it’s intergenerational memory. Like spiritual griots, both Obongjayar and Simz channel this memory not through fact, but through feeling.

The song becomes a living document. The “lion” is Monroe’s inner strength—the one Hollywood never let her show. The growl in Simz’s voice is her own, but it echoes Monroe’s suppressed rage. The cadence of her verse, clipped and tight, sounds like someone pulling herself back from the brink. “Lion” becomes Monroe’s lost anthem.

And perhaps, in this sonic memoir, Simz offers what Monroe never had: an elegy with agency. No longer does Monroe drift as a cautionary tale. She roars as a symbol of self-definition, finally heard on her own terms.

Bridging Iconography: From Studio Lots to Global Stages

There’s a mythic symmetry in this transatlantic tether. Monroe, a girl from Los Angeles who became a symbol for American femininity, and Simz, a daughter of the London underground, whose voice now echoes globally. What binds them is not fame, but fire—the desire to define oneself in a world that prefers you in silhouette.

Simz doesn’t just reference Monroe to elevate her music; she collapses the space between them. In doing so, she reminds listeners that the cultural icons of yesterday are not relics—they are reflections. Monroe’s image haunts because it was never complete. Simz, through her music, seeks to finish the portrait—not with makeup, but with blood, memory, and bone.

Flow

“Lion” ends not with fanfare but with echo. The beat fades, the chant lingers, and the listener is left with the unmistakable impression that something sacred has transpired. It is not closure; it is continuation.

In revisiting Monroe through this track, Little Simz gives the late actress what the world never did: a space to evolve. Not a pin-up, not a ghost, not a tragedy—but a woman still growing, still burning, still roaring.

“Lion” is not a resurrection. It is a recognition. And in that recognition, Little Simz bridges lifetimes. She becomes not just a musician, but a myth-keeper—guiding lost spirits into modern soundscapes, making sure no voice, no matter how drowned in glamour or grief, is ever silenced again.

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