‎Simmy on Apple Music

Simmy’s vocals make her house-infused love songs feel as balmy as a fine spring day. Born Simphiwe Nhlangulela in 1994 in Tugela, a small town in the KwaZulu-Natal province, Simmy owes her musical sensibilities to the maskandi and country songs her father played while she was growing up. In the mid-2000s, she relocated to Johannesburg and participated in Idols SA and South Africa’s Got Talent before rising to prominence with “Ntaba Ezikude,” a 2018 single by Sun-El Musician, with whom she attended university earlier in the decade. After signing to the producer/DJ’s El World Music label, Simmy released her 2018 debut, Tugela Fairy, which introduced her as an exciting new voice in South Africa’s competitive house and Afrosoul scenes. Thanks to tracks like “Umahlalela,” on which she sings about the conundrum of dating an unemployed man over an interpolation of kwaito group Bongo Maffin’s 1998 single “Amadlozi,” Simmy established herself as a creator of songs that thematically resonate with everyday South Africans.