LULU.’s New Single “Not There Yet” Confronts the Stillness Between Hope and Arrival

By the time a dream starts to feel like a heavy burden, that’s when you know it’s real. In “Not There Yet,” South London’s LULU. distills that exact weight. She explores the ache of endurance in a track that’s both spiritually rooted and emotionally raw.

LULU. sings with striking clarity and intention. Every word feels carefully chosen, delivered with the kind of introspection that suggests she’s less interested in impressing than in being understood. Her voice moves with calm assurance narrating the space where doubt, faith, and perseverance sit. 

Sonically, “Not There Yet” floats in that rich intersection of Afrobeats’ rhythm and UK soul’s introspective depth. The production is textured with a minimal drum pattern pulsing underneath warm guitar licks and ambient synths. It’s a sound that doesn’t push for the spotlight but lingers long enough to demand your attention. 

Her lyrics are written like confessional scripture that sits right on the edge of doubt and hope: "I’ve been a wreck, I'm overwhelmed / But I know it’s never easy when joy is close." There’s a spiritual thread that runs through the track mirroring the everyday resilience of someone raised in church who knows that sometimes faith is less about knowing and more about continuing. It’s reminiscent of early Cleo Sol, or even hints of Lauryn Hill’s “MTV Unplugged” moments. Those vulnerable, unpolished spaces where a Black woman speaks her truth plainly, without needing to embellish.

There’s a growing wave of British artists, such as ENNY, Joy Crookes, Olivia Dean, who are refusing to separate their artistic output from their interiority. LULU. fits within that lineage, but her insistence on creating from a place of spiritual honesty makes her approach distinct. “Not There Yet” doesn’t offer neat resolutions. What it offers instead is far more compelling: the reassurance that movement, even when slow, even when unseen, is still sacred.

What makes the track especially resonant in 2025 is how clearly it mirrors a generational fatigue. Many young listeners are navigating burnout disguised as ambition, clutching at dreams formed under the myth of constant productivity. In this context, Not There Yet doesn’t read as a personal lament. The lyrics speak not just to faith in a spiritual sense, but faith in the self, in timing, in the idea that working hard will eventually mean something. It’s a song about learning to wait without numbing out.