As far as forward-thinking soul music goes in South Africa, there’s no one who does it quite like Simmy. With a critically acclaimed debut, Tugela Fairy (2018) having garnered a heap of SAMA nominations, as well as earning the title of one of Apple Music’s most boundary-breaking local stars in 2019, she has been building a unique name for herself within the broad-spectrum of soul-pop for some time now.
Here we are in 2020, she’s the Apple Music Africa Now cover artist and has just unleashed her second full length release: a simultaneous nod to her debut, only this time with a star-studded assembly of collaborators hopping aboard to contribute. It’s Tugela Fairy (Made of Stars) – or 2.0 as I like to see it – and it’s a rich and nuanced narrative of her musical journey through an ongoing tale of femme empowerment.
It’s packed full of her personal growth and versatility, brimming with life in the form of neo-soul contingencies, deeply embedded pop hooks and a whole lot of African zeal sprinkled over the top. Driving beats underpin just about every track, hinting at a whiff of progressive electronicism before Simmy’s silvery vocals bring it right back to her roots.
From the off-kilter jazz inflections of her Ami Faku collab “Hamba Ngifike”, through the lo-fi hints of “Konke” on which S-Tone joins her, to the rhythm driven multi-lingual “Mabhungu” – there’s a whole lot to uncover throughout the hour-long extent of this album.
Simmy is pushing the envelope of neo-soul into her very own territory – revolutionizing Afro-pop one beat-driven anthem at a time.
