There’s a certain kind of song that doesn’t just soundtrack a story but inhabits it, threading itself through the cracks of a character’s unraveling. On ‘Price Of It All’, Jorja Smith leans into that space, delivering a slow-burning, cinematic centrepiece for Bait, the Prime Video series created by and starring Riz Ahmed.
The track arrives as the first glimpse into the show’s wider sonic world, and it’s clear from the outset that music isn’t an afterthought here, it’s structural. Built on sweeping orchestration and layered instrumentation, ‘Price Of It All’ expands gradually, moving from intimate restraint to something far more expansive, with Smith’s voice sitting at the centre like a steady pulse as everything around it shifts and swells.
Bait itself follows Shah Latif, an out-of-work British-Pakistani actor whose life begins to fracture just as opportunity appears, landing a final audition to play the next James Bond. What unfolds is a tightly wound four-day spiral where identity, family and public scrutiny collide. The series moves between psychological tension and sharp comedy, and the soundtrack mirrors that hybridity, drawing on cinematic scoring, 1970s Pakistani film music and contemporary UK and South Asian artists to create something deliberately uncontained.
Within that landscape, ‘Price Of It All’ feels like an emotional anchor. Written as a thematic core for Shah’s journey, the track captures the uneasy weight of ambition, the cost of visibility, the quiet erosion that can sit beneath success. It’s a composition that resists immediacy, instead unfolding patiently, allowing its emotional gravity to settle.
The release also lands at a pivotal moment for Smith. A decade on from ‘Blue Lights’, the track that first introduced her voice in 2016, she enters 2026 in a reflective but forward-moving mode. Recent releases like ‘Don’t Leave’ have kept her firmly in rotation, while collaborations with AJ Tracey, Nas, Venna and Shygirl continue to stretch her sonic reach.
That momentum carries into a year that looks both celebratory and expansive. Smith is set to return to the global stage, supporting Harry Styles on his Together, Together world tour, including a run of shows at Mexico City’s Estadio GNP Seguros, while also stepping into a curatorial role at All Points East alongside Tems.
Stream ‘Price Of It All’ HERE.
