A Bit Mhudi

The enigmatic artist is no stranger to bringing a room to its knees with her powerful voice. She commands every audience she is in front of effortlessly, and she stuns every time.Her vocals are soft and gentle like Erykah Badu, and soulful like Jill Scott. She can sound extremely powerful and in charge, while exuding a delicate feminine prowess. This duality extends outwards from her. It's evident when you see her paint or do make-up or dress, or express herself in any other way.It's refreshing to hear musicians like her communicate. Simana is so free and honest in her art, that it's comforting and heartwarming to consume.That's why her song 'Black Woman' has made the impact that it has. It's a soft and gentle tune for African women to feel proud of themselves, and it's become sort of an anthem for many.Scroll down Instagram and you'll find countless women celebrating their beauty and dancing along to the lyrics “Have you ever fallen in love with a black woman?”The video Mhudi first posted of herself singing the song, which went viral by accident, has been played close to 70 000 times, while the audio alone has been used by others on Instagram about 500 times.The song, sung over a beat she found on YouTube, came about completely by chance, according to her.“I think the day before that I made a mental note that I had to write something about black women, so I listened to a bunch of beats online,” she explains.“It was definitely not supposed to be more than one of the many little singing reels I make as a way of practising my song writing.”The song did quite well, however, and it's yet to even be officially released.Simana went on to tell us how the positive reaction to the song was much more than she anticipated.“It made me so happy to know that it meant so much to a few hundred women, but it was definitely overwhelming. I'm not good with being caught off guard, so as much as it was exciting, it was definitely a little scary.”Simana casually declares she is a 20-something-year-old who is just trying to explore her talents. Singing is the thing she wants to mostly focus on now.She says this year she wants to release a project and be more intentional about her music.See, Simana got her start early as a member of her church choir, but it was not till she came across Lize Ehlers' Song Night that she felt it was something she could realistically pursue.“The platform almost gave me a voice outside of a friend or two telling me I didn't sound so bad or getting a compliment from a random aunty after church,” she recalls.“Since then I've just been playing around with this talent that I feel I accidentally found out about. I'm just nurturing it as I figure out my sound or whether I want a specific sound at all.”Simana has performed live at countless shows, including when she had her own turn as headliner at Chicago's in Windhoek, where she had music and poetry acts on the line-up.She says she is inspired by others who do what she does, who ignite curiosity inside her.“I love studying my favourite artists' music and trying to understand what about them makes me love them so much. I feel like I'm chasing that with the music I write,” she says. “I want to make things as beautiful as they do.”– Anne Hambuda is a screenwriter, poet, columnist and creative thinker. Email annehambuda@gmail.com for more.

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