Simisola Ogunleye, the sonorous singer with such striking voice simply know by the mononym Simi, is relatively a household name. Since her emergence in the music scene her status has progressively escalated since her hit song “Jamb question”.
What some fans may not have knowledge about is that she was indeed a gospel singer before switching sides. She opened up about a lot of other things and why she left gospel to pursue a career in mainstream music in an interview with PUNCH.
Simi, who is apparently graduate of Mass Communication from Covenant University spoke on a number of issues in the interview.
The first thing that comes to the mind is that I did it for monetary reasons. However music became about ‘more’; I wanted to have a broader purview.
It was a tough decision for me to make at first. I wanted to explore music more. My faith in God hasn’t wavered because before I went mainstream, I prayed to God to bless my career if it was his plan
for me. I also don’t see myself doing gospel music again.
She also explained how she got her trademark sound. When I put out a gospel album in 2008, it was laced with a lot of R&B and hip-hop because I dabbled into a lot of sounds. It took me a while to create an identity sound-wise. I went to the US and after experimenting with several sounds, I fine-tuned my sound. I incorporated a lot of African inflections and it stood me out.