Among the surprisingly good songs she's previously sung (surprising for someone, like me, just getting to know, OMG, that she even exists) are:
1) I Do [Released in 2011; 41,266 views to-date]
2) Don't Judge Me, sung with Bibanke [2013; 26,908 views]
3) E No Go Funny [2014; 27,732 views]
4) Tiff [2014; 177,209 views]
5) Jamb Question [June 2015; 435,147 views]
Open and Close, Simi's latest video, was published only a few weeks ago, on 17th November. It already has 54,480 views, and counting. It has a charming story-line, if I get it right from all that pidgin. It's an act in more ways that one or two. Thus: a 'Mboch' catches a matatu (don't ask me how both got to Lagos from Nairobi) and off she goes to buy tea for her Ikoyi, her Island -- that's her employer. She, in her Blue Lagoon sort of hair, had to borrow everything she has to wear, from shoulder to toe, in order to execute this errand. She simply won't go in her maid's uniform. The others in the combi join her in this incredible mission.
Soon they chance upon a VIP party -- a bourgeois affair -- over-supplied with fine drinks and assorted bites; and entertained with cool melodies selected by an accomplished piano player. Remember this is Ikoyi. They proceed to do all the disdainful mboch things -- taste this and that; sip this, throw that back into the tray; go here, go there. Only that, this time, it's all in the presence of their masters' types.
But then someone has the misfortune of asking Simi's avatar for a dance. Proletarian hell breaks loose, all of a sudden. All she knows, which the one who asked doesn't (or chooses to forget) is break dance and belly dance and everything else that's unbecoming, in the circumstances. Instead of playing the piano, temporarily vacated by the maestro, one of her own sits heavily on it, shifting her weight this way and that, and making sounds that those in the guest list do not associate with, anymore. The ghetto dance gets hotter and hotter, and there's so much static and electricity that even the dull brighten up. Soon, everyone joins in -- I think they suddenly remember their pasts -- and fun is had by all. And all's well.
Two things really stand out in this song, besides the story-line: Simi's one-of-a-kind voice and the wonderful chorus which accompanies her singing. The intriguing thing is that it isn't quite the voice you hear in any of the five songs I've listed above!
Here's the video, jienjoy:
PS (May 23, 2016): Here's Simi's brief take on 'Open and Close'
