Nigerian singer Simi recently opened up about a surprising cultural realization she encountered during a visit to Kenya, where she discovered that not all Africans speak pidgin English, a popular form of broken English commonly used in Nigeria.
Speaking as a guest on the 90’s Baby Show, Simi recounted her experience when she traveled to Kenya years ago for a potential music collaboration.
“I went to Kenya years ago, and we were supposed to do a remix of my song with a Kenyan artist, and then there is a lot of pidgin in the song. They asked me to write my lyrics down and then ask, ‘Can you translate?’ and I go, ‘What the fuck do you mean translate? It’s English. It’s pidgin, but it’s English,'” she shared.
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Simi admitted that this encounter came as a shock because she had previously assumed that pidgin English was widely spoken across Africa.
“Before then, I had thought that everybody in Africa could speak pidgin the way we speak pidgin, so that was a culture shock for me. I thought these were our people; are we not the same?” she questioned during the show.
The singer also revealed that her 4-year-old daughter, Adejare, has picked up some pidgin English due to its regular use in their household. Simi and her husband, Adekunle Gold, often converse in pidgin with each other and their friends. “My daughter even started speaking pidgin by herself because we speak it around her and to our friends. So sometimes she would be like, ‘Wetin you do o,’ and I love that because you need to have a gossip language around people,” Simi affectionately shared.
Simi’s candid discussion sheds light on the diversity of languages and cultural practices across Africa, highlighting how perceptions and assumptions about language can vary widely even within the continent.
